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Introduction
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PDFtoMusic is a groundbreaking and unique program
that
converts Adobe
PDF music sheets into editable music scores.
From an Adobe
PDF file created
by any music
notation program, PDFtoMusic can play
the piece, sing the lyrics and export
this piece to miscellaneous file formats: MIDI,
Myr,
BMP,
WAV,
AIFF and MusicXML
for the
Pro version.
What can I use it for?
How does PDFtoMusic work?
What are the differences between the
"Pro"
and "Standard" version?
What
can I use it
for?
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Usages for PDFtoMusic are numerous. First, on the
Internet, many
dedicated sites provide large
collections of free musical PDF files.
PDFtoMusic will let you play them, or convert them
into a music file
format that you'll be able to modify by using your
usual music notation
software.
Thus, PDFtoMusic gives you access to a wide library
of public domain
score sheets that you can play or edit.
Also, there are many music notation programs, and
only a few manage
compatible exchange file formats. PDFtoMusic solves
this issue. You
just have, from your program, to generate a
PDF file (see next chapter), read it with
PDFtoMusic and convert it
into format that can be read by another application,
for instance, Myr
or MIDI format (or MusicXML for the Pro version).
PDFtoMusic becomes then a bridge between your
miscellaneous music
programs.
For instance: your choir master only uses "Music
Architect 2000", that
can only save files in its own, proprietary format.
You just have to
ask him for a PDF file for the score, and by using
PDFtoMusic, you'll
get a score that can be edited in Harmony Assistant.
If you own the Pro version of PDFtoMusic, you can
also export into
MusicXML exchange format, from Recordare.
The Music XML
file format is currently supported by a number of
notation
applications, including Finale and Sibelius.
How does
PDFtoMusic work?
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PDFtoMusic analyzes the content of Adobe PDF files.
It collects all the
graphical information that it can process: fonts,
lines, miscellaneous
graphic objects. From these graphical items,
PDFtoMusic will infer the
music score to be played.
Note : some PDF files (albeit rare) embed only a
single picture for the
whole score, instead of a collection of simple
graphic objects.
This kind of PDF file has probably been generated
from a scanned paper
sheet. PDFtoMusic can't extract and process
elementary graphical items
in such cases, and reports that such a document
cannot be processed.
To convert a PDF file, select "File>Open" in
PDFtoMusic and select a
PDF file on your hard drive. PDFtoMusic will load
it, and start
automatically to process and display it.
If PDFtoMusic makes a mistake while processing the
document, you will
be able to fix
this mistake manually. It is described in the corrections
section of this
manual.
PDFtoMusic can export the result automatically each
time a PDF file
is processed, and open this result in the program of
your choice.
What are the
differences between the "Pro" and
"Standard" version?
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The "Pro version" includes options and features that
are not present in
the "Standard" version:
- Batch file export, to convert in only one
operation all PDF
files from a folder and its subfolders.
- "Expert" mode to manually override
individual default
processing settings in order to have more precise
control.
- Export in MusicXML format in order to
preserve the score sheet
layout when importing into one of the numerous
programs that support
this format.
How do I generate a PDF file from any software?
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PDFtoMusic is able to convert a PDF document with such a high level
of accuracy because it analyses the actual font characters which are
embedded in the PDF document.
When asking for generating a PDF document, you must ask for the character fonts to be embedded into the PDF document.
Generally, it's the default setting.
If PDFtoMusic detects a font that is not embedded in the document, an
alert will be displayed:
meaning that the rendering could be different from expected.
Here is how to create a PDF file, depending on your system kind:
To create PDF files from any music software (or any
other application)
under Windows, you must install a small program
beforehand.
This program can be either a freeware, like DoPDF, PrimoPDF, PDFCreator,
a shareware, like
PDF995, or a
commercial
software package like the tools of the Adobe
suite.
Note : Be careful, some freeware
programs likePDFCreator CutePDF
ou Bullzip PDF Printer install
unwanted adware toolbars in your Web browser. It's
highly recommended to disable installation of these
toolbars when possible, or to use any other
adware-free alternative.
All these programs behave like a new printer for
your computer.
When "printing" a document to it, a file name is
asked, and the
printing result is actually saved in PDF format.
When printing from any program, you will then find a
new entry in the
printer selector that appears:
Select the printer (here "PDFCreator) then click
"Print".
You'll then get a window for entering optional
information about the
PDF file to be created (Title, date, author...),
then a file selector
for specifying the name and location of this file.
The PDF file that matches what you asked for being
printed is then
generated, and can be opened by PDFtoMusic.
You can then either send this file by e-mail to
somebody else, or
process it with PDFtoMusic to convert it into the
file format you need.
`
With a Macintosh under Mac OS X, it's quite easy to generate a PDF file
from any program, by using the print dialog box. Once the file is
loaded into the software, select "File>Print". The printer selector
opens, and you can select here the page range to be printed.
In the bottom part of this box, you'll see a "PDF" or "Save as PDF"
button.
Click it, select a name for the file and save it. The Adobe PDF
document is created on your hard disk at the required location.
You can then either send this file by e-mail to somebody else, or
process it with PDFtoMusic to convert it into the file format you need.
`
To create PDF files from any music software under Mac OS 9, you must
install a small program beforehand in the system "Extensions folder",
like Acrobat PDFWriter or PrintToPdf.
Select the Chooser from the Apple menu, and click on the program icon:
Then close the Chooser. (The AppleTalk setting is irrelevant in this case.)
All these programs behave like a new printer for your computer.
When "printing" a document to it, enter a file name, and the
printing result is actually saved in PDF format.
A PDF file of your score is then generated which can be opened by PDFtoMusic.
You can then either send this file by e-mail to somebody else, or
process it with PDFtoMusic to convert it into the file format you need.
`
Generating a PDF file from any program under Linux
needs to use a
special printer driver that saves the graphic
commands into a file
instead of actually printing them on paper.
You can then either send this file by e-mail to
somebody else, or
process it with PDFtoMusic to convert it into the
file format you need.
With KDE, the "kprinter" command (KDEPrint package)
includes an option to generate a PDF file:
If this option is not included in your distribution,
you'll probably
need to use cups-pdf.
To install it under Ubuntu,
please refer to this document:
http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/03/23/print-to-pdf-using-cups-pdf/
To install it under another distribution, please
read:
http://www.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de/~vrbehr/cups-pdf/download.shtml
The General application menu is called "PDFtoMusic"
on the Macintosh,
and "?" on the PC.
About...
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Display information about PDFtoMusic: its version
and the sound
database
currently used for playing music. You'll also see
whether the program
is registered or if you are using a trial version.
For
any question about PDFtoMusic, please provide this
information to
technical support along with your questions about
PDFtoMusic.
Documentation
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Opens this manual.
Internet
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Go to our Website
Connects to the Myriad website
Go to the discussion forum
This forum is a place where you can discuss with
other
users, and where the authors of the program
regularly weight in. It is
designed to host discussion about general topics.
For specific issues,
it's recommended to send a problem report directly
to the authors
through the following menu option.
Send us an e-mail
You'll send a report directly to the authors, in
order to ask a
technical question.
WARNING: please be sure to provide a valid e-mail
address, otherwise
you won't get an answer from us!
When sending an e-mail to the authors through this
option, all the
necessary information about your hardware and
software us automatically
included, so you don't have to repeat them in your
message.
It is possible, and even recommended, to attach a
file that will
illustrate your query.
Search for a score
You will search PDF files on the Internet using Kooplet.
Language
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Program language selection. This submenu allows you
to select the
language of the user interface.
Ordering
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You are connected to the our online store, from
where you can order
our products.
Please consider that the playback quality of
PDFtoMusic, as well as the
audio file export (WAV, AIFF, MP3) can be
drastically improved by using
GOLD 2 sound base.
Input my registration code
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This option is active only if your copy of the
program is not
registered yet. To do it, enter your personal
details, as well as the
personal license number that you received after your
purchase. This
operation has to be done only once.
Unregister the program
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This option is active only if your copy of the
program is registered.
It wipes out the registration information. You have
to do this when you
sell your computer, or if you are using a computer
other than yours.
Note: this is important, because you are personaly
responsible for
keeping the information related to your license
confidential.
Open
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Opens the window for selecting a PDF file from your
hard disk. The file will be loaded and analyzed.
Icons show the computation progress. You can cancel
the operation at any point by either closing the
document window, or by hitting the Esc key. You are
then asked to confirm the cancellation process.
Open recent file
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In this menu, PDFtoMusic shows the 32 last loaded
PDF files. The last item in this menu erases this
list.
Search the Internet
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You will search PDF files on the Internet using Kooplet.
Close
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Closes the frontmost document. If you applied
changes to the document that have not been saved
yet, you are asked for a confirmation.
Save
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This submenu is active only if changes have been
applied to the frontmost document.
Changes you made to the PDF document are saved,
either in the PDF file itself, or in a separate file
(depending on your settings in "Settings >
Preferences", "Document" section)
Save as
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Saves the PDF document under another name, embedding
the changes you applied to it.
It enables you, for instance, to save a separate
version of the PDF document that includes your
amendments, while keeping the original version
unaltered.
It is the only way to store your amendments into a
PDF file when the setting for "Store Corrections to
PDF file" is unchecked in General Document
Preferences.
See this chapter
for more details.
Properties
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Provide various informations about the PDF
file : creator, date, embeded fonts, etc.
Open with editor
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The frontmost document is exported (in the file
format defined in PDFtoMusic preferences) and opened
with the related program.
Open PDF file with editor
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The PDF file is opened with the editor defined in
PDFtoMusic preferences.
Export
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Exports the frontmost document in any of the
available file formats.
You can select the page(s) to be exported, as well
as the parts.
Please refer to the file
format
description
chapter for more information.
Batch process
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This option enables you to convert a whole batch of
files in a single operation. You just have to select
the source folder that contains the PDF files to be
processed, and a target folder where the result
files will be stored.
- An option enables you to define that generated
files will be stored in the source folder.
- A pop-up menu lets you select the export format
(Cf "File format"
chapter).
- An option enables PDFtoMusic to process also the
PDF files stored into subfolders of the source
folder.
- Another option prevents PDFtoMusic from processing
files which are already present in the target
folder. It is useful when you abort a batch
export then wish to resume it without restarting
from the beginning.
- An additional option recreates the source folder
tree into the targer folder.
You can cancel the operation at any point by either
closing the document window, or by hitting the Esc
key. You are then asked to confirm the cancellation
process.
Partial process
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You will define the range of processed pages. This
will be applied to all documents, including the
batch process.
Printer setup
(MacOS only)
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Setup for printing : paper size, printer, etc.
Print
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The PDF file will be printed.
Undo
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When a change (amendment) has been applied to the
document, you can
undo this operation. The 6 last operations can be
undone.
Select all
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Select all objects. Any change applied to a selected
object will be applied also to the other selected
objects.
Deselect all
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Deselect all.
Immediate reprocess mode
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When this option is active, amendments made to the document will trigger an immediate reprocessing.
When inactive, you'll be able to run manually start reprocessing at your convenience.
Reprocess now
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If immediate reprocess mode is switched off and amendments have been made to the document, this option reprocesses the document.
Delete changes on selected objects
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Delete changes (amendments) that have been
applied to the currently selected music
symbols and objects
Delete all changes
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Delete all the changes (amendments) that have been
applied to music
symbols and instruments of the document.
Note: changes about the
way fonts are
handled are not altered by these two last
operations.
Play
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Plays the whole score or the currently selected
area.
To select a measure: click on the measure.
To extend the selection: shift+click on the measure
ending the selection
To delete the selection: click in the selection
To select a part until the end: delete the selection
then shift+click on the part and the measure chosen
To select all the parts until the end: delete the
selection then shift + double click on the chosen
measure
Pause
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Stops music performance, that can be restarted at
this point later.
Stop
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Stops music performance. A new start will play the
score from the beginning again.
Volume
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Enables to set up the sound overall volume
Tempo
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Enables to set up the tempo (performance speed) of
the music
Force played measures
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You will define the measures to play. This can be
single measures like "8,10,11,13,14,6" or group of
measures like "2-12" where measure 2 to 12 will be
played.
Measure or group of measure currently edited is show
on the document.
Loop
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While playing allow to repeat the document
or the selected area.
Virtual Singer
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Enables to decide whether you want the lyrics to be
sung
by Virtual Singer or played by an instrument.
One semitone up/down (transposition)
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Semitone shift for the whole score. This
only affects direct playback and doesn't change the
generated files. The current value is displayed
under the Play icon.
Number of measures before music start
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These measures before the music start with the
metronome. Metronome state is ignored.
Drawer
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This option is active only when the document is
longer that one page.
Activates/deactivates the drawer related to the
document. The drawer
shows the document pages as thumbnails. You can jump
to any page by selecting its thumbnail in the
drawer.
The number of errors found by PDFtoMusic on this
page is also displayed over the thumbnail
Note: you can ask for the drawer to be opened
automatically when a new document is loaded, by
selecting the matching option in the general
preferences, "Document" section.
Scroll mode
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When this mode is active, the miscellaneous systems
(staff groups) are not displayed on top of each
other, like in a real music sheet, by one besides
the other, as a virtual "ribbon".
Recognition result
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When this mode is active, PDFtoMusic displays the
symbols it recognized over the regular PDF drawing.
These miscellaneous symbols are displayed in color:
- notes and
rests :
dark blue
- clef, key
and time signature: light blue
etc.
Measure numbers
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Displays measures numbers. If a measure is
never played, its number is displayed in grey. This
can occur when a repeat symbol is incorrectly
written or wrongly analysed. You can fix this by
forcing the played measures list in Performance
menu.
Horizontal pages
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Pages are displayed side by side, by group of two.
This mode can be defined as default in the global
settings.
Actual size
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Resets the document display scale to 100%
Double size
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Resets the document display scale to 200%
Full width
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Adjusts the document display scale so that its width
fits the window.
Full page
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Adjusts the document window size so that it occupies
as many space as possible on screen.
Zoom in
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Increases the document display scale.
Zoom out
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Decreases the document display scale.
Go to measure...
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Shows the measure of the given index.
Page -
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Shows previous page
Page +
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Shows next page
As any other system based on computer recognition,
PDFtoMusic is not infallible, and can make some
mistakes, more or less impiortant depending on the
quality of the document. You can interevene on the
recognition result and apply amendments. These
changes can be saved so that they are preserved when
loading the document again.
PDFtoMusic offers two
ways of saving these amendments.
In a general way, when using PDFtoMusic, always
start by listening to the result through the
"Performance > Play" menu option. If you hear any
mistake, this mistake will probably be also present
in the exported file. So it's highly recommended to
fix it with the available tools, the "Correction"
menu being one of them.
If no PDF document is open when you change a setting
in this menu, it will apply to all future opened
documents, otherwise it will apply to the frontmost
document.
In some cases, changing a calculation setting for a
document will need its total or partial
recomputation.
Instrument
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For each staff found in the document, PDFtoMusic
shows the related instrument. You can change this
instrument as well as its volume, panning position,
octave shift and semitone shift.
Through the semitone shift you can specify that an
instrument in the score is a transposing instrument.
For instance, a staff written for a clarinet is
usually notated as a Bb transposing instrument (its
semitone offset is -1) and an alto Sax as a Eb
transposing instrument (its semitone offset is -9).
If the instrument is human voice, you can specify
the language that Virtual Singer will use for
singing the lyrics.
A check box activates globally the "surround"
effect. This effect increases the panning separation
of the miscellaneous instruments, for all the
documents.
Staves and systems
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When a line is full on page, music notation makes
the whole set of staves restart at the next line.
Each group of staves that are played together from
left to right on page is called a system. There can
be several systems on each page.
In order to save space, staves that don't play
across a system are frequently not displayed in this
system.
This can lead to tricky situations, where it becomes
difficult to know which staves are part of the next
system, and which staves aren't. For instance, if an
instrument doesn't play in a system and is hidden
starts to play at the next system, while another
instrument stops playing, the number of staves in
the two systems can be the same, while the staves
aren't. In this case, only the staff name, its clef,
or other indicators enable to understand the score
structure.
PDFtoMusic includes specific algorithms that
"follow" staff lines from a system to another. The
"Staves and Systems" mode lets you change the way
staff lines are connected together.
A description is provided here.
Areas
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In this mode, you can define excluding or including
areas.
These areas apply to character or line objects
- If at least one inclusion area is present on the
page, all objects located outside any inclusion area
are ignored
- Any object located in an exclusion area is ignored
This can be useful, for instance, if a group of
characters is not well managed and troubles the
recognition.
To add an area, click and drag.
To delete an area, right-click it then select
"Delete" in the contextual menu
In the same menu, you can define what page range the
area applies to.
Areas are saved along with the amendments made to
the document. The
"Edit > Delete all changes" menu option therefore
also deletes all
areas.
Fonts
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A PDF document includes graphic objects (frames,
lines, etc) as well as characters extracted from a
font. Those characters can be either letters and
digits, or music symbols.
PDFtoMusic has some manual font recognition settings
that can help correct mistakes, which are described here.
Allow multi-voices staves
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If PDFtoMusic considers that one or several staves
in the document are made of several voices and you
are sure of the opposite, you can deactivate this
processing mode.
Allow enhanced chords
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Two notes horizontally very close to each other can
be considered as belonging to the same chord (there
are sometimes chords in which the notes are not
perfectly aligned). This option enables you to
deactivate this mode.
Allow tuplets
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In some scores, a digit appears near the note to
indicate the fingering. In some cases, PDFtoMusic
interprets this fingering text as tuplets (triplets,
etc). If there are no tuplets in the piece,
deactivate this option to prevent PDFtoMusic from
searching for tuplets in the score.
If you deactive this option, PDFtoMusic will no
longer search for tuplets in the score.
Allow fingering
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If PDFtoMusic recognizes tuplets as fingering
notation (this generally provides a bar duration
error), you can deactivate fingering seeking for the
whole document.
Allow key changes
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It can be sometimes difficult to tell accurately
whether the accidentals at the start of a bar are a
key change, or regular accidentals that has to be
applied to the following notes.
For instance:
If PDFtoMusic finds key changes on a document that
doesn't include any, deactivate this processing
mode.
Allow time signature change
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If wrong time signature changes are added inside a
measure line, disable this option.
Allow lyrics
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If some textual informations, near the staff are
recognized as lyrics, and the document don't include
lyrics, you can disable them whith this option.
Allow shared lyrics
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In some vocal pieces (for
instance, Barbershop scores), when several
performers sing the same lyrics, only one lyric
line is written:
When this mode is active, PDFtoMusic will assign the
lyric line to both staves.
Allow clefs vertical shift
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Is this mode disabled, clefs vertical position will
be ignored
Allow bracket to create groups
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Normally, staves groups are notated with braces. Is
this mode is active, bracket also create
groups.
Allow left and right hand fusion
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Groups
of two staves joined by a brace are merged into
one part. If not active, this allows you, for
example, to export the left hand and the right
hand separately.
Allow chords name
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In some cases, the lyrics line can be constituted by
chords names, for example when the singer sing "La
La La La". Invalid this option to ignore chords name
processing and add the texts to lyric line and not
chord line.
Allow complex typography in
chord names
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In some case, chord names are written using
miscellaneous fonts, size, or vertical shifts.
Activate this option to got a more flexible chord
names recognition.
Allow special lines
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Some PDF draw note stems with
rounded lines :
Some programs draw staff lines using characters
mixed with standard lines.
Some programs draw dots using small rounded lines.
When this mode is enabled, these lines will be
processed.
Allow thin beams
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Some PDF draw beams with thin
lines :
When this mode is enabled, these lines will be
processed.
Allow automatic break adjustment
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Some PDF include several lyric
lines related to the staff with incorrect break
symbols (repeats, jumps, endings). When this
mode is enabled, PDFtoMusic tries to create
breaks symbols in order to match the actual
number of repeats.
Allow multi-rest
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If some numbers below the staff are recognized
as multi-rest, you can disable them with this
option.
Allow short barlines
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In some old notations, barlines
are displayed as a small vertical line :
When this option is on, these lines will be
processed as regular, full-length barlines.
Allow ledger lines
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Ledger lines are used to determinate note
pitches when the symbol is outside the staff lines.
If there is no ledger lines, notes will be lost. In
this case disable this option.
Allow tempi
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If tempo changes are incorrectly found in your
document try to disable this option.
Allow dynamics
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If dynamics are incorrectly found in
your document try to disable this option.
Allow group names
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If group names are incorrectly found in
your document try to disable this option.
Allow modern notations
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This option is still experimental. It aims to
enable specific algorithms to handle special cases.
Processing of time signature located above the
staff.
Allow ancient notations (pro version
only)
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In ancient notation we found accidental below or
above note like here :
Allow figured bass (pro version only)
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In this type of notation, the chords of the bass
are written in a simplified way: a note gives the
fundamental, numbers and symbols specify inversions
and alterations of degrees.
Allow grace notes
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If little notes are processed as graces, disable
this option.
Allow big images
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Eliminates images that are too large and can
disrupt visualization. By default, all images which
are larger than 25% of the page. On PDFtoMusicPRO
this threshold is adjustable in the "Images" tab of
the expert mode.
Staff matching over systems
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With this option, you can change the way the
software follows automatically a staff across
systems (see "Staves and Systems" above)
The most complex levels are usually more accurare,
but could slow down significantly the whole process
(up to several dozens of seconds per page)
The different possible levels are:
- Very Simple: Dedicated to scores in which
empty staves are not omitted
- Simple: For simple cases (e.g. a few
instruments disappear after the intro). It's the
default value when the software has just been
installed.
- Quite Complex: Some staves disappear and
others appear frequently on the score, and the
previous level makes mistakes
- Complex: Score difficult to read, with many
staves disappearing while other appear. To be
used when all the previous levels fail.
High resolution
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When a document is made of many tiny staves, some
inaccuracy errors can occur in the vertical
positioning of notes and rests.
Switching to high resolution increases the precision
(and the computation time). You can define that all
documents will be loaded in high resolution from the
general preferences.
Reset to default settings
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This applies to all settings from "Allow multi-voice
staves" to "High-definition".
• If no PDF document is open and this option is
inactive, then all default calculation settings are
already identical to the factory's.
This option is active when at least one default
setting has been changed.
Differences are displayed in bold, and you can reset
them all to factory settings either by selecting
this option, or manually, one by one.
• If at least one PDF document is open and this
option is inactive, then the settings for the
frontmost document are aleady indentical to those by
default.
This option is active when at least one setting has
been changed for this document.
Differences are displayed in bold, and you can reset
them all to default settings either by selecting
this option, or manually, one by one.
This menu enables to set up the PDFtoMusic behaviour. Don't hesitate to
explore carefully the numerous options. It can prove to be very useful.
Preferences
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Opens the general preference window. You can adjust from here the way
the PDFtoMusic Pro interface will react. The miscellaneous options are
arranged in sections.
A complete description of each section is provided
here.
Toolbar
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Enables to customise the icons in the documents toolbar. This is
functionally identical to right-click the toolbar then select "Setup".
Expert mode
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|
It's the PDFtoMusic Pro calculation fine setup.
A complete description of each section is provided
here.
With this menu you will manage tools and select
opened documents.
Mixer
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|
Opens the mixer
Virtual keyboard
|
|
Opens the virtual
keyboard
Lyrics following
|
|
Opens the lyrics following.
PDFtoMusic
displays Adobe PDF files as documents. Several
documents can be loaded
simultaneously.
General points
Toolbar
Drawer
Saving files
General points
|
|
While loading and processing a PDF file, analysis
progress is shown
through icons. You can cancel the processing at any
point by hitting
the "Esc" key or by closing the window.
Once the analysis is complete, the PDF drawing is
displayed in a
document window.
Toolbar
|
|
The toolbar in the upper part of this window enables
you to
play music, navigate within the score, pause and
restart playback and
adjust volume or tempo (playback speed).
Tips:
- To quickly start or stop playback, use the
space bar.
- To activate "loop mode", use the "*" key
- To fast forward, use the "+" key
- To fast backward, use the "-" key
- To pause music, use the "=" key
- Page up and Page down keys to change page
If the document contains several pages, the
following icons enable you
to
switch to the previous or next page. You can also
use the vertical
scrollbar to move through the whole document.
The next icons change the display scale of the
document.
The "info" icon displays information about the
document. These details
are extracted from the PDF file: title, document
author, creation date,
as well as the character fonts embedded in this
document.
If the Adobe PDF document include lyrics, the "bird"
icon is present.
Click this icon to activate the virtual singer
before starting
playback. This default setting can be changed in
Preferences,
"Document" section.
The "export" icon exports the music piece in the
current format
specified in general preferences, "Export" section.
But you can also
select another format from the file
selector, by typing in the matching extension. For
instance, to export
in Wave format, end the filename with ".WAV".
You can cancel the export at any time by hitting the
Esc key.
Right-clicking (or Shift + click) on the toolbar
changes its appearance.
The "Setup..." option enables to customise the
toolbar icon list
according to your needs.
Drawer
|
|
If your document contains several pages, the last
icon opens and closes
the drawer. A drawer is a secondary window, linked
to the main one,
that shows a general preview of the document. Click
a thumbnail to jump
directly to the selected page.
If errors have been
found, a warning sign
is displayed, specifying the
number of errors detected on this page.
Saving files
|
|
When amendments have been applied to the document,
as for instance a
change in the instruments, volume, or music symbols
recognition, you
can save these changes so that they will be
preserved when loading the
file again later.
PDFtoMusic lets you choose beween two modes that can
be set up from
general preferences.
1- Save changes in the Adobe PDF file itself
(When Settings > Preferences > Document
> Store corrections in PDF file is checked)
Data is preserved in the Adobe PDF file. A backup
copy of this file is
performed. This doesn't affect the way this PDF file
is displayed by
other programs.
The advantage to this mode is that, when you send
the file to somebody
else, your changes are carried along.
2- Save changes in a separate file
(When Settings > Preferences > Document
> Store corrections in PDF file is not
checked)
The original Adobe PDF file is not modified, and the
data are stored in
a separate file, created in the "Correction"
subfolder of your user
file space.
Please note that, in this mode, you can still
generate a PDF file in
which your amendments are embedded by using the
"File > Save as..."
menu option.
This dialog box enables you to set up the PDFtoMusic
Pro
behaviour. Don't hesitate to explore carefully the
numerous options. It can prove to be very useful.
Quick Links
Starting
Document
Alerts
MusicXML
Export
Batch Processing
Glyphs
Starting
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|
Load documents automatically at startup
If ticked, when the application is started,
documents that were open during the last session are
automatically reloaded. It's possible to cancel the
processing at any time, either by closing the
window, or by hitting the Esc key. You'll then be
asked for confirming cancellation.
Open file selector ar startup
When ticked, if no document is loaded when the
application starts, the file selector will
automatically open, so that you can select a file to
be loaded.
Open file selector ar startup
When ticked, if no document is loaded when the
application starts, the file selector will
automatically open, so that you can select a file to
be loaded.
Document
|
|
Store corrections in PDF file
When ticked, the amendments you could have applied
to the PDF file are stored within the file itself.
When not ticked, they are saved into a separate
file, located in the "Corrections" folder of your
user folder.
Note: see the chapter
about the miscellaneous file saving modes.
Make a backup copy of the original PDF file
If changes are stored in the PDF file itself, you
can also ask for a backup copy .bak.pdf to be
created at the same level as the original PDF file.
It is even recommended.
Open drawer automatically
When ticked, the drawer will be automatically
open if the document contains more than one page.
Open full screen
When ticked the document window will extend over
the whole screen when loaded.
Activate Virtual Singer automatically
You can specify whether Virtual Singer is active
or not when a document is loaded.
Activate MyrSynth automatically
If ticked, when possible, instruments will play
using MyrSynth, our high-quality physical modeling
synthesizer.
Display recognition results
When ticked, the recognition results will be
displayed when the document is loaded.
Note: you can activate/deactivate this display
through the "Display" menu.
Warn when embedded fonts are missing
Some PDF files do not embed the font drawing for the
characters they use. PDFtoMusic Pro can warn you
when
such a case occurs.
Full path in document title
If ticked, the complete path to the PDF file will be
displayed in the document window title.
Play music automatically
Music will start playing as soon as the PDF file has
been processed
At the end of the process
In this drop-down menu, select the sound that will
be played when the PDF file has been processed.
Apply corrections drop-down menu
Defines the default settings for the "Correction"
menu options when a new PDF file is processed. Each
of them can be activated/deactivated on a
per-document basis through the menu.
Alerts
|
|
Display processing errors into a text window
When PDFtoMusic Pro detects an error when processing
the
document, it will display a small icon over the
document itself representing each item you have
ticked in the Alerts panel of general preferences.
In parallel, PDFtoMusic Pro can create a list of all
errors encountered as text in a special window (pink
background). Right-clicking this window opens a
contextual menu for erasing, saving or printing the
window content.
The following items enable you to mask some errors
(these errors are still present but no longer
displayed). Here are the descriptions of the
miscellaneous processing errors
Display "Impossible to apply beam"
PDFtoMusic Pro recognized a character that looks
like a beam, but couldn't find any music symbol
close enough.
Display "Impossible to apply ornament"
PDFtoMusic Pro located a character that looks like a
note ornament, but couldn't find a note close
enough.
Display "Broken slur"
PDFtoMusic Pro recognized the shape of a slur
(possibly a tie), but either it could find the
source note for this slur but not the target note,
or it could find the target note but not the source.
It therefore can't apply the slur.
Display "Impossible to find a measure for this
symbol"
PDFtoMusic Pro recognized a musical character in
the
document, but could not relate it to any measure
(bar) area. It can happen for instance for some time
signature indicators that are put as a reminder at
the beginning of a line.
Display 'Impossible to find the reference note on
tablature"
When the document shows tablatures for fretted
instruments, PDFtoMusic Pro estimates the duration
of
notes written on the tablature by seeking for the
matching note in the regular staff. If PDFtoMusic
Pro
can't find this reference note, it generates this
error.
Display "Incorrect measure duration"
When several staves are present in a single system
(staff group), PDFtoMusic Pro checks that the
duration
of each bar is consistent. If PDFtoMusic Pro detects
a
difference in measure duration, this error is
generated. It can occur in the following situations:
. PDFtoMusic Pro made a
previous
miscalculation either when extracting the symbol
duration, or when locating chords within the measure
(especially when notes in chord are not on the same
vertical line)
. There is an error in the source
score's notation. This may depend on a number of
factors, including the overall accuracy of the
source program used to create the PDF.
In some cases, PDFtoMusic Pro can consider two notes
that are horizontally close together to be in chord,
instead of considering that they are consecutive.
By un-checking the various options in the
"Correction" menu, you can deactivate the display of
specific types of errors that cause "Incorrect
measure duration" warnings.
MusicXML
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|
These are the options for creating MusicXML files.
Enable MusicXML format extensions
PDFtoMusic Pro is based on the MusicXML format. To
import MusicXML files that have been created by
PDFtoMusic Pro, you must use Melody Assistant
version 7.3 or more, or Harmony Assistant version
9.3 or more.
Although very complete, MusicXML format in its
version 1.1 doesn't manage some objects that can be
found on scores. In agreement with the MusicXML
team, we added specific commands to the MusicXML
format.
If the software used for reading the XML files is
compliant with the standard, these additional
commands won't be a problem. In the best case, they
will be processed, and in the worst, simply ignored.
Otherwise, disable this option to forbid any
extension to the standard.
Create MusicXML even if no vector music data have
been extracted
PDFtoMusic Pro reads the PDF document in search for
a
music score. If it can't find any, for instance if
you ask PDFtoMusic Pro to process a payslip,
you will be
warned through and alert box that no vector musical
data could be located.
This can also occur when a PDF document doesn't
contain a score made of elemental graphic
object, but a scanned music sheet.
Activating this option forces PDFtoMusic Pro to
generate
a MusicXML file from these data, even if they are
not considered as music data.
To date, only Harmony Assistant or Melody Assistant
enable to load such MusicXML documents.
Export measures filled with rest as empty
measures
Enables not to export in the MusicXML files the
rests that fill completely the measure. These
measures will be considered by the software that
imports the file as filled by a "logical" rest
instead of a "physical" one. In some cases, in can
ease the edit process.
Use MusicXML 2.0 format
When this option is ticked, the export is made in
MusicXML 2.0 format.
This format, more advanced, enables to keep more
information about the score appearance, but might
not be supported by music notation programs.
Export
|
|
The export settings don't affect batch processing,
which uses its own options.
When loading a PDF file, PDFtoMusic Pro analyzes it
automatically. It can then export it immediately in
any of the available formats, and open this
resulting document in an external application. The
following options are available in the Export tab of
the Preferences:
Export all opened files automatically
This check box activates/deactivates the
automatic export.
"to folder..."
If automatic export is activated, use this option to
select the path to the folder where the resulting
documents will be stored.
The "Change" button enables you to select another
(file) path.
"File format"
This pop-up menu lets you select the export format
to be used (Cf appendix
about
format description)
Don't export page setup
When this option is active, measure size, space
between staves, page breaks, objects related to
pages are not exported. Number of measure by line is
set to 4. This mode is automaticaly enabled when we
ask to export a reduced number of parts.
Open automatically exported files
When this option is active, each exported
document will be opened automatically by the program
of your choice (it supposes that the selected
software is capable of reading this kind of file).
The "Edit" button enables you to select the
application that will be used for opening each of
the export file formats.
The "Delete" button lets you specify that you don't
want this format to be processed.
Batch
processing
|
|
When you ask PDFtoMusic Pro to process a set of PDF
documents through the "Batch processing" option,
some alerts can be displayed during the processing.
When this option is active, these alert boxes will
close automatically after a few seconds, so that the
processing is not stopped and can continue to its
end.
Glyphs
|
|
PDFtoMusic Pro uses optical recognition algorithms
on
music fonts to detemine the meaning of each symbol.
Store glyphs into a cache
When this option is ticked, symbols that have
already been encountered at least once will be
processed more quickly.
However, activating this option can lead to a bigger
memory consumption.
Erase font cache at exit
When this option is not ticked, glyphs are preserved
from one session to another.
Deactivating this option can lead to a bigger memory
consumption.
Note: the glyph cache is located in the preference
folder:
"Myriad Preferences/PDFtoMusic/GlyphesData". Please
do not apply any action to this folder while
PDFtoMusic Pro is running.
Expert settings allow the user to override the
automated settings of PDFtoMusic Pro up in order to
improve recognition of one or several documents.
You'll intervene directly on the internal algorithms
of PDFtoMusic Pro.
By default, PDFtoMusic Pro is set to mean values,
that work well for most of the PDF files. But for
some specific files, these settings can lead to
errors, that you can fix from here.
This needs a good knowledge about how PDFtoMusic
Pro processes PDF files. Please only change one
value at a time, and apply slight changes.
But don't panic, you can restore the default values
at any time by clicking the "Reset" button.
These settings are applied when the PDF document is
loaded, so they don't affect the documents already
in memory.
The miscellaneous sections are provided in a precise
order: the sequence used by PDFtoMusic to analyze a
document.
For instance, concatenation of characters to build
words is performed before analyzing words.
For each section, a complexity level is provided,
from low to high.
Before applying changes to a section of high
complexity level, please reflect deeply...
Quick Links
Editing
settings
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|
The first time you ask for
expert mode settings, you are asked for a
confirmation.
Then you see this dialog box:
At the left of this window is
the menu of various expert mode options. Each
section is described in detail later in this
chapter. If a value from a section has changed
from the default value, a star icon is displayed
before the section name.
On the right, sliders that enable to change a
value. Double-clicking the numeric value edits
its value as a text. If the value is
different from default, the offset is displayed
on the right.
At the bottom, several buttons:
• Default
Defines current expert settings as the default
values for PDFtoMusic Pro calculation. To be
used with great care.
• Reset
Resets expert settings to their original
value for the current section only, or for all
sections.
• Load
Loads an expert setting definition file,
previously saved through the "Save" option. This
affects all sections.
• Save
Save all expert settings in a definition file.
This enables you to create predefined sets of
parameters.
• << and >>
Switches from one section to another, you can
also click in the section list.
Please note that if you change one or several
expert settings, when running PDFtoMusic Pro, an
alert will be displayed to alert you that you'll
process PDF files with different parameters than
the default.
In the same way, when you send an e-mail to the
technical support (Internet menu), all the
parameters that have been changed are attached,
so that we can work on your files with the same
settings as yours.
Horiz.
&
vert.
lines
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|
Complexity : high
Horizontal and vertical lines are an essential
element, and the first step in analysis.
They form staff lines, barlines and note stems that
constitute the document's backbone.
Line analysis is performed before staff seeking, so
units are pixels.
If some staves appear to be missing after analysis,
altering these settings could help.
|
|
A score
excerpt
|
What
PDFtoMusic Pro detects
|
• Horizontal imprecision for line merging (in
pixels)
When lines are actually made of several small
lines end to end, increasing this value will enable
a more tolerant merging of these lines.
• Vertical imprecision for line merging
(in pixels)
Some thick lines are actually made of several thick
lines, drawn on top of each other. Increasing this
value will enable a more tolerant merging of these
lines.
• Minimum line size for dust removal (in pixels)
Small useless lines are sometimes found, which can
be removed with this setting.
Staves
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Complexity : high
Once horizontal lines have been detected, PDFtoMusic
Pro will try to determine staves: a set of more or
less equidistant horizontal lines, with end
positions rather close.
Once staves have been extracted, the document
general unit is known: the "line space", i.e. the
distance between two horizontal lines in the same
staff.
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|
Detected
horizontal and vertical lines
|
Detected staff
lines
|
• Horizontal imprecision for staff lines
connection (in pixels)
Maximum tolerance for merging two lines drawn end to
end into a single one.
• Vertical imprecision for staff lines (in
pixels)
Maximum tolerance for merging two lines drawn on top
of each other in a single, thicker one.
• Maximum line thickness (in pixels)
Enables to remove too thick lines. If you see, on
your document, undetected staves with rather thick
staff lines, increase this value.
• Maximum line space (ratio of the page height)
Lines which are too far apart in your document
can be removed with this option. If staves with
rather outspread staff lines go undetected, as can
occur in tablature, increase this value.
Be careful, too much tolerance will detect staves
where there are none.
• Minimum horizontal size for staff lines (ratio
of the page width)
Lines which are too short can be removed with this
option. For instance, one or two measures, or even a
whole paragraph of underlined text might be
drawn as an embellishment, and do not match the
actual content of the score. Or, for instance, a
whole paragraph of underlined text
• Line space imprecision (in line spaces)
This value sets the calculation tolerance when
searching for equidistant horizontal lines. On some
PDF files generated with a low resolution,
horizontal lines of a staff are not regularly
spaced.
Slanted
lines
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|
Complexity: average
Slanted lines are mainly used to draw beams,
hairpins or tuplet groupings.
|
|
A score
excerpt
|
In red, what
PDFtoMusic detects
|
• Imprecision for slope comparison
Increasing this value will enable slanted lines with
more different slopes but drawn end to end to be
merged together.
• Horizontal imprecision for line merging (in
line spaces)
• Vertical imprecision for line merging
(in line spaces)
Increasing these values will allow two lines of
similar slope on top of each other to be merged
together in order to make a thicker line.
• Vertical distance for line end comparison (in
line spaces)
Increasing this value will enable slanted lines that
are not perfectly end to end to be merged together
in order to make a longer line.
• Thickness imprecision for slanted line merging
(in line spaces)
Prevents slanted lines from merging if they meet all
the above requirements but their thickness is
different.
• Dust removal on slanted lines: Minimum allowed
size (in line spaces)
Small useless lines are sometimes found, which can
be removed with this setting.
Systems
&
groups
|
|
Complexity: average
Staves have now been found, as well as slanted
lines. PDFtoMusic Pro will aggregate staves into
staff groups. Vertical lines or brace and bracket
symbols located in the left margin are extracted.
|
|
A score
excerpt
|
What
PDFtoMusic Pro extracts:
A three staves system.
The two bottom staves are grouped into a
single part by the brace.
|
• Horizontal imprecision for system seeking (in
line spaces)
In some documents, the grouping symbol is either far
from the left end of the staff, or within the staff
area. This setting determines the maximum distance
in line spaces.
If this value is zero, each staff becomes an
independent system.
• Vertical imprecision for system seeking
(in line spaces)
The maximum distance between the end of the grouping
symbol and the top or bottom of the staff.
Barlines
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|
Complexity: average
Once staves have been grouped together, PDFtoMusic
Pro will locate vertical lines that start at the top
of the system or staff, and end at the bottom of the
system or staff, in order to extract barlines.
|
a) thick barline
b) thin barline
c) double thin barline
|
• Minimum thickness for a thick barline (in line
spaces)
Specifies at what point a barline should be defined
as thick.
If, for instance, repeat barlines are not
recognized, decrease this value.
Conversely, if too many bold barlines are
recognized, increase this value.
• Minimum distance between two thin barlines (in
line spaces)
Sometimes, a barline is drawn several time at the
end of the measure in the PDF file. Increasing this
value will replace double barlines with single ones.
• Minimum measure width (ratio of the staff
height)
Measures are supposed to contain symbols, so they
should be wide enough. But some measures can be
narrow (upbeat for instance). Decrease this value if
several narrow measures are merged into one.
Clef
|
|
Complexity: low
Once staves have been grouped together, and measures
detected, PDFtoMusic Pro will begin to interpret the
individual symbols. It starts with clefs.
• Minimum height for a clef symbol (in line
spaces)
Minimal symbol height to consider it as a valid
clef.
• Minimum height of a 8 or 15 over clef (in
line spaces)
Minimum height for considering a clef octave offset
(8va, 8vb, 15ma...) as valid.
• Maximum height of a 8 or 15 over
clef (in line spaces)
Maximum height for considering a clef octave offset
(8va, 8vb, 15ma...) as valid.
Time
signature
|
|
Complexity: low
Unabbreviated time signatures can easily be taken
for miscellaneous numbers like tuplets or fingering.
The following settings allow time signatures to be
more accurately interpreted in these cases.
• Vertical parting position between time
signature numerator and denominator (ratio)
Determines how much line spacing is allowed between
the numerator and denominator to be considered part
of the same time signature object. This is expressed
as a percentage (ratio) of the character height.
• Minimum size for time signature numbers
(in line spaces)
Numbers (digits) below this size threshold are not
considered to be part of the time signature.
• Maximum horizontal shift between time signature
digits (in line spaces)
When numbers are made of several digits, this
setting defines the maximum horizontal distance
between them.
Notes
|
|
Complexity: low
It's now time to detect notes that are drawn on the
staff...
• Maximum size of a grace note head (in line
spaces)
Adjusts discrepancies between grace note and regular
note size.
Notes are always bigger than grace notes on the same
document.
However, this difference is sometimes small. If
grace notes are mistaken for notes, decrease this
value.
• Maximum size of a grace note drawn in one
symbol (in line spaces)
When grace note head, stem and flag is drawn through
a single character, maximum size of this character
• Maximum distance from the flag to the note (in
line spaces)
Flags which are too far from the notehead can be
removed.
See also: "Dots" section.
Ledger
lines
|
|
Complexity: low
Some notes are drawn outside the staff line area. To
relate them to the right staff, but also to show
clearly their degree, small horizontal lines are
drawn between the notehead and the staff.
• Maximum size of a ledger line (in line spaces)
Ledger lines wider than the specified value will be
ignored.
• Maximum horizontal distance between notehead
and the ledger line (in line spaces)
• Maximum vertical distance between notehead and
the ledger line (in line spaces)
The notehead is supposed to be more or less centered
on the ledger line. These settings enable to adjust
this tolerance.
Accidentals
|
|
Complexity: low
Accidentals are related to notes. However, when a
key change occurs, similar symbols are displayed
before notes but are defining the new key value.
Changing these settings can lead PDFtoMusic to
consider note accidentals as a key change, or vice
versa.
• Maximum vertical distance between accidental
and notehead (in line spaces)
If the accidental is verticaly too far from the
notehead center, it's not taken into account. This
setting has rarely to be adjusted. (a)
• Maximum horizontal distance between the right of
the accidental and the left of the notehead (in
line spaces)
When notes are in a chord, the accidental may
have to be shifted left in order to avoid
overlapping. Increasing this value will tend to
relate the accidental to the note instead of a key
change. However, more complex algorithms try to keep
consistency in the results provided by this setting
(b)
Special cases can be solved by adjusting this value,
as in this example:
Where accidentals are drawn far
away from the noteheads.
• Maximum horizontal distance between accidentals
and notes in chord (in line spaces)
In the same way, in a chord, accidental placement
follows a logical scheme. Increasing this value will
make PDFtoMusic Pro search for accidentals farther
from the noteheads (c).
Stems
|
|
Complexity: low
Finding proper stems is crucial because it
determines both note duration and chords.
Indeed, the note will be linked to beams and flags
through its stem.
• Maximum horizontal distance between the notehead
and the stem (in line spaces)
Vertical lines drawn too far from the notehead
won't be taken into account. (a)
• Maximum thickness of a stem (in line spaces)
Vertical lines thicker than this value won't be
taken into account. (b)
• Minimum size of a stem (in line spaces)
Smaller vertical lines won't be taken into account.
In certain documents, notes are drawn with very
short stems. It will then be necessary to decrease
this value. (c)
• Minimum size of a grace note stem (in line
spaces)
Smaller vertical lines won't be considered as grace
note stems.
• Maximum size of a stem (in line spaces)
Longer vertical lines won't be taken into
account. (c)
Rests
|
|
Complexity: low
The main problem with rests is to recognize whole
rests. It is indeed a very basic shape (a rectangle)
that can be confused with an horizontal beam or a
tenuto symbol for instance. The following settings
will help to differentiate.
• Minimum width of a whole rest (in line
spaces)
• Maximum width of a whole rest (in line
spaces)
Too wide, or not wide enough rectangles are not
considered.
• Minimum height of a whole rest (in
line spaces)
• Maximum height of a whole
rest (in line spaces)
Too thick, or not thick enough rectangles are not
considered.
• Maximum vertical distance from the rest to the
staff area (in line spaces)
Most of the time, the vertical height of rests is in
the staff area. However, particularly when the staff
is made of several voices, the rest is shifted up or
down in order to avoid ovelapping with other symb
This value sets the maximum offset from the rest to
the upper or lower bound of the staff.
Tuplets
|
|
Complexity: low
Tuplets can apply to notes and rests. They are
generally drawn above or below a beam. They can be
drawn using a bracket that specifies the notes to
apply the tuplet to.
Tuplets can be confused with fingering notation.
Tuplet seeking can be deactivated through the
"Correction" menu, for the whole document.
• Maximum horizontal distance between the number
and the middle of the beam (in line spaces)
When the tuplet is related to a group of beamed
notes, the tuplet number is centered on the beam.
This value defines the maximum offset from this
ideal value. (a)
• Maximum vertical distance between a tuplet and
the line (in line spaces)
The tuplet number is usally close to the beam.
This value defines the the maximum offset from this
ideal value. (b)
• For thin lines broken by a tuplet value, Maximum
horizontal distance between the line end and the
note (in line spaces)
Sometimes, the tuplet is drawn with a bracket
that encloses notes. This value defines the maximum
gap between the number and the line end (c)
• Maximum horizontal distance for connecting
broken tuplet lines (in line spaces)
When the tuplet number is drawn over the line, this
line is broken. This value defines the maximum width
of the gap (d)
• Minimum height for tuplet text (in line
spaces)
• Maximum height for tuplet text (in line
spaces)
These bounds of tuplet character height help to
differentiate between a tuplet and a fingering.
• For discriminating between a tuplet and a
fingering ornament, ratio between the number
of text objects that can make a well placed
tuplet and the number of text objects that can
make a tuplet
The possible confusion level between tuplet and
fingering is calculated, and if too high (big
proportion of possible misplaced tuplets), we'll
suppose that tuplets are all drawn with a bracket.
Dots
|
|
Complexity: low
Dots can be drawn after the notehead to alter its
duration, or they can be staccato or repeat barline
elements.
• Minimal size of a dot (in line space)
Dust (small meaningless dots) can be removed with
this setting.
• Maximum size of a dot, to discriminate it from
a grace note head (in line spaces)
Enables to discriminate between a dot and a grace
note head.
Increasing this value can affect the double-whole
rest recognition
• Maximum vertical distance between the notehead
and the dot (in line spaces)
The duration dot related to a notehead to make a
dotted note value can be shifted vertically. If a
duration dot is not taken into account, increase
this value slightly.
• Maximum horizontal distance between the
notehead and the dot (in line spaces)
Defines the maximum horizontal distance for a
dot to be considered as being related to a notehead.
• Maximum distance between the dot and the repeat
bar (in line spaces)
If a repeat barline is taken for a piece start
or end barline, increase this value.
Ornaments
|
|
Complexity: average
PDFtoMusic has some settings to manually compensate
for graphical similarities, such as the shape of
tenuto ornaments and whole rests.
• Minimum horizontal size for a tenuto (in line
spaces) (b)
• Maximum horizontal size for a tenuto (in line
spaces)
• Minimum vertical size for a tenuto (in line
spaces) (a)
A tenuto is a small horizontal line usually drawn
above the notehead. Many kinds of horizontal lines
can appear on a score. These values can be adjusted
to locate tenuti between the horizontal lines that
haven't yet been processed as staff lines or ledger
lines.
• Maximum horizontal distance between ornament
and note (in line spaces) (c)
• Maximum vertical distance between ornament and
note (in line spaces) (d)
Ornaments are generally placed near the note they
are related to. These values define the maximum
tolerated distance.
• Minimum horizontal size of an ornament (in line
spaces)
Some very small shapes can be taken for ornaments.
This value removes very small shapes that can be
taken for ornaments.
Fingering
|
|
Complexity: average
Fingerings are numerical values from 0 to 5 that
define the finger of the performer that has to be
used to play the note.
They can be easily confused with tuplets.
To know the height of a character on the page, hold
the mouse pointer over the object for one second.
• Fingering character minimum height (in line
spaces)
• Fingering character maximum height (in line
spaces)
Adjusting fingering character height bounding values
can, in some cases, help to differenciate between a
tuplet and a fingering.
Slur
|
|
Complexity: low
Slurs and ties are always related to two notes: the
source note and the target note.
For each shape likely to be a slur, PDFtoMusic Pro
searches for the matching notes. If the slur is
split because its staff reaches the right edge of
the page, PDFtoMusic will seek the target note in
the matching staff of the next system.
• Maximum horizontal distance between the slur
end and the notehead (in line spaces)
• Maximum vertical distance between the slur end
and the notehead (in line spaces)
Maximum distance between the notehead and the slur
end. It only affects the rough search of notes
related to the slur.
• Minimum slur height (in line spaces)
Defines the amount of arc a slur must have in order
not to be considered a horizontal line.
• Imprecision for slur seeking (in line spaces)
Fine setting for finding the note to be related to
the slur.
• Vertical imprecision for connecting slurs from
a system to another (in line spaces)
When a slur is broken by the end of the page, a
second slur is searched for in the equivalent staff
of the next system. This value defines the vertical
tolerance for finding the second slur.
• Imprecision for merging two overlapping slurs
(in line spaces)
In some files, several slurs are drawn at the same
place. In order to reduce them to only one slur, an
area comparison is performed, with this tolerance.
• Ratio of two-part slurs (mirror) occurrence
In some files, slurs are drawn in two parts, one for
the first half, then one (mirorred) for the second
part. An analysis is performed for determining
whether the file follows this way of displaying
slurs.
If the number of end to end slurs compared to the
number of separated
slurs
is
greater
than
the
ratio,
slurs
are considered to be
mirrored.
In some cases the slurs are traced via a multitude
of small lines.
The following parameters allow you to adjust the
splicing precision of these lines.
-Horizontal search precision for castings drawn
with lines (in line spaces)
-Precision of vertical search for flows drawn
with lines (in line spaces)
Tie
|
|
Complexity: low
Slurs have been extracted, PDFtoMusic Pro now tries
to find which of them are actually ties.
This needs the note height to be compared, as well
as a rather short distance between the notehead and
the tie end:
• Maximal horizontal distance between the tie end
and the note head (in line spaces)
• Maximal vertical distance between the tie end
and the note head (in line spaces)
Beam
|
|
Complexity: average
Horizontal and slanted lines that have not been
processed yet will be analyzed in order to see
whether they connect to note stems and are thick
enough. They will consitute the beams..
• Horizontal imprecision between stem position
and beam (in line spaces)
Adjusts how far from the note stem the beam is
allowed to appear before it is no longer considered
a beam grouping. This value enables to adjust this
tolerance (a).
Note that PDFtoMusic may interpret tenuto ornaments
as beams if this value is increased.
• Horizontal imprecision between stem position
and beam for tremolo (in line spaces)
For tremolos, the beam doesn't connect to the stem
(b)
• Vertical imprecision between stem position and
beam (in line spaces)
In the same way, vertically the stem end has to be
close to the beam (c)
• Minimum thickness of the beam (in line
spaces)
Horizontal and slanted lines will be considered as
beams only if their thickness is above this value
(d)
Be aware a too low value can disturb the tuplet
recognition.
• Maximal thickness of the beam (in line spaces)
Horizontal and slanted lines will be considered as
beams only if their thickness is below this value
(d)
• Minimal distance between beam and notehead (in
line spaces)
Beams have to be far enough from the notehead (e)
• Tolerance for multiple beam slope comparison
When a beam is made of several lines, they have to
be more or less parallel. This value is the
tolerance between these beam slopes.
Fonts
|
|
Complexity: low
• Ratio between characters on the staves and the
total number of characters for considering a font
as a music font
In order to know whether a font is used for drawing
music symbols or text, the way the font characters
are spread on the page is analyzed.
The number of characters drawn inside the staff
areas is counted, as well as the number of
characters outside these areas.
This ratio is compared to the value of this
parameter, and the font type determined.
Please note that this result can be changed after
the fact by manually editing the font type ("Correction" menu)
Characters
|
|
Complexity: low
Characters that have not been yet processed as music
symbols will be analyzed in order to form words.
• Maximum vertical distance between a character
and the word it belongs to (in percent of the word
height)
Defines the imprecision in the word base line. The
greater value, the more characters located on
slightly different line will be considered as
belonging to the same word.
Especially useful for for superscripted letters, as
in chord suffixes like "C7", where the "7" is
shifted up.
• Maximum horizontal distance between the end of
a word and a character for concatenation (as a
ratio of the word height)
With a greater value, characters farther apart
horizontally will be considered as belonging to the
same word.
If this value is too high, lyrics related to the
staff might merge into a single word.
More important: on tablatures, cell numbers can be
erroneous. For instance, a 3 followed by another 3
on the same string will give "33"
• Maximum horizontal distance between the end of
the word and the musical symbol for tempo
markings (in percent of the word height)
Enables to merge the tempo text indication and the
musical one, made of a note followed by an "equal"
symbol and the tempo value.
• Minimal distance between two identical
characters (in percent of the character height)
In some files, each character is drawn several
time, -almost- at the same place. This parameter
enables to remove these identical characters when
another one has already been drawn.
Words
|
|
Complexity: low
Characters have been grouped into words. These words
will constitute word lines, and these lines analyzed
to determine whether they are lyrics, or chord
names.
Bar numbers, staff or staff group names are
extracted.
•Vertical imprecision for creating word lines (as
a ratio of the word height)
Defines vertical tolerance for creating word
lines.
• Maximum horizontal distance between measure
start and its number (in line spaces)
• Maximum vertical distance between measure start
and its number (in line spaces)
This defines maximum distances for measure
number seeking.
• Maximum vertical distance between the staff and
its name (in line spaces)
Staff name is supposed to be vertically centered
on the staff line area. This parameter defines the
tolerance.
Lyrics
|
|
Complexity: low
Word lines that are not chord name lines will be
analyzed to extract lyric lines. A lyric line is
always located under its matching staff.
• Ratio for discrimination between dash and
underline
Horizontal lines in a lyric line are considered as
dashes or underline (melisma). The vertical position
of the line, in proportion of the line height,
differenciates between them.
• Ratio between the number of words and
the number of notes in a staff line, theoretically
1.
Enables not considering some words as lyrics, if
greater than the limit.
Sometimes, text lines, drawn under a staff are
not lyric lines, but for instance, the page footer.
The words that can be related to a note are counted,
in proportion with those which can't. If this ratio
is below the provided value, the line won't be
considered as a lyric line.
• Maximum distance between the first line of
lyrics and the bottom of the staff (in line
spaces)
If the first word line is too far from the bottom of
the staff, it is not considered as a lyric line.
• Maximum vertical distance between lyrics
lines (in multiple of the line height)
When searching music with several lyric verses, this
setting determines the maximum distance to consider
between verses.
• Matching ratio between notes for shared
lyrics
When a lyric line is located between two parts,
notes in the two staves are compared, and a matching
ratio between them is computed. If the result is
greater than this parameter value, lyrics are
considered as shared between the two staves.
Paragraphs
|
|
Complexity: low
Words that have not been yet processed as lyrics,
chord names, staff names, etc, will be grouped into
paragraphs and exported as free text.
First, words will be aggregated into word lines,
then the lines vertically merged into paragraphs.
• Maximum horizontal distance for merging text in
lines (as a multiple of the font size)
Maximum distance between two words on the same
line.
• Maximum horizontal distance for adding a space
in line (as a multiple of the font size)
If the distance between two words on a same line
is greater than this value, a space character will
be inserted between them.
• Maximum horizontal distance for merging lines
in a paragraph (as a multiple of the font size)
Maximum horizontal offset between two lines in a
same paragraph. It is applied to the left and the
right of the lines (paragraphs can be justified)
• Maximum vertical distance for merging lines in
a paragraph (as a multiple of the font size)
Maximum vertical distance between two lines of a
same paragraph.
Multiple
bars
|
|
Complexity: low
Multi-rest measures are drawn as a symbol at the
center of the measure, and a number above.
• Minimum height of the multi-rest number (in line
spaces)
The number has to be tall enough (a)
• Maximum offset between the multi-rest number
and the measure center (in line spaces)
The number has to be more or less centered in the
measure (b)
• Maximum distance between the multi-rest number
and the staff (in line spaces)
The number has to be drawn above the staff, but not
too far (c)
Parts
/ Endings
|
|
Complexity: low
Part indicators define portions of the score that
are played only at some times.
• Maximum thickness of a part line (in line
spaces)
Vertical or horizontal lines thinner than this value
will be ignored (a)
• Minimum height of the vertical line (in line
spaces)
Vertical lines at the beginning and the end have to
be tall enough (b)
• Minimum length of the horizontal line (in line
spaces)
The line that joins the beginning and the end can be
broken, we define here its minimum length (c)
• Imprecision for connecting vertical and
horizontal lines (in line spaces)
Vertical and horizontal lines are interpreted as
part of the same (ending) bracket only if they are
within this tolerance.
• Minimum height of numbers (in line spaces)
Numbers have to be big enough (d)
• Minimum height of dot (in line spaces)
The dot between numbers, if present, must be big
enough. If it is not, it will be removed, in order
to avoid confusion with a staccato, for instance.
Crescendo
/
decrescendo
|
|
Complexity: low
Slanted lines that have not been considered yet as
beams are analyzed in order to determine whether
they connect by one of their ends. Depending on the
result, they are either considered as crescendo,
decrescendo or marcato.
• Horizontal imprecision for seeking the two
lines of the symbol (in line spaces)
• Vertical imprecision for seeking the two lines
of the symbol (in line spaces)
Lines have to connect with enough accuracy (a &
b)
• Minimum size for a decrescendo. If smaller, the
decrescendo will be changed into a marcato (in
line spaces)
Decrescendo has to be wide enough, otherwise it is
considered as a marcato (c)
• Comparison of crescendo line size (as a ratio
of the reference size)
Lines must be of about the same length (d)
Dynamics
|
|
Complexity: low
• Maximal distance between dynamic and middle of
the staff (in line spaces)
If distance is greater than this value, dynamic
marks (pp, mf, ff...) are not considered as such.
Octave
offset
|
|
Complexity: low
Octave shift symbols (8va, 8vb, 15ma, 15mb) are
followed by a line, dashed or not, that shows which
notes are affected.
• Horizontal imprecision for seeking line on the
right of the symbol (in line spaces)
The line must not start too far from the symbol (a)
• Vertical imprecision for seeking line on the
right of the symbol (in line spaces)
Line has to be more or less vertically centered on
the symbol (b)
• Discrimination between a line drawn with dashes
and a line with dashed attributes (in line spaces)
Maximum distance between dashes when the line is
drawn dashed (c)
Pictures
|
|
Complexity: low
In a PDF file, pictures can either be decorative or
draw the shape of a music symbol.
• Maximum size of pictures to be processed as
music symbols (in pixels)
Bigger pictures will be considered as decorative.
• Minimal size of pictures to be processed as
music symbols (in line spaces)
Smaller pictures will be considered as decorative.
• Minimum size of pictures to be exported in the
result (in pixels)
Smaller pictures will be ignored and won't be
exported in the result file.
Chord grids
|
|
Complexity: low
A grid of horizontal and vertical lines is sought. A
chord name is associated with this grid.
•Minimum and maximum distance between two lines
(in line spaces)
minimum and maximum distances between grid lines.
•Inaccuracy of start of line (in line spaces)
tolerance for the search for the beginning of lines
•Maximum distance between diagram and staff (in
line spaces)
diagrams that are too far apart will be eliminated.
Introduction
|
|
Kooplet is a search engine specialized in music scores.
From a note pattern Kooplet will display a list of documents from the Internet that contain this pattern.
Processed
file formats are those containing all necessary information to provide
an editable score. For instance, digital audio formats
(wav,aiff,mp3,etc) are ignored.
Kooplet will provide links to files in Myr, PDF, Mu3, Mus, XML, MXL,
Abc, Etf, Tef, Nwc, Enc, Tab, Mid, Kar, Mod, S3m, Cmf, Sty, Rhp, Etf,
Gp5, Gp4, Gp3 or Gtp format.
PDF files can be converted by PDFtoMusic or PDFtoMusic Pro, the others can be imported directly in Harmony Assistant.
By clicking the "Play" button below the search result area, you'll be able to hear the note pattern in its context.
Three search modes are available. Search mode can be selected from the first icon in the toolbar:
- Search for pitch, regardless of the rhythm
- Search for rhythm, regardless of the pitch
- Search for both pitch and rhythm
It is also possible to search music score files for text, as well in the titles or comments as in the lyrics.
If a text and a music pattern are entered, result documents match both the text and the pattern.
Contrarily to other generic search engines, Kooplet extracts
information from within the music file content.
Documents
are not stored on the Kooplet servers but remain on the site where they
have been found. Therefore, when downloading or viewing a document, you
will read it directly from the original site that hosts it.
The toolbar
|
|
The toolbar changes according to the selected search mode, or whether you insert notes or rests, etc.
From left to right, you can find:
- Search mode selection
- Start and stop pattern playback
- Delete the whole pattern
- Pattern input from the microphone (experimental)
- Sharp mode for note input
- Note/Rest input mode
- Symbol duration
- Dot mode
Tips
|
|
You can add symbols by clicking the virtual keyboard.
If you click the keyboard or the staff with the Shift key down, you hear the note without inserting any symbol.
If you click a symbol with the Alt key down, it is deleted.
If notes are selected in the frontmost document before Kooplet is activated, these note will be used as search pattern.
Advanced search
|
|
When
searching for a text, if you write the words between quotes, search
will be performed on these words in this order. Without quotes, it will
be performed on these words in any order.
For instance, if a score contains lemon tree, it will match the tree lemon search, but not "tree lemon" between quote marks.
If you write a minus symbol before a word, this will have to be absent from the document text.
For instance, if you search for Ave Maria -Gounod, matching files will contain the words Ave and Maria, but not the word Gounod.
The "Setup" button set up the search broadness.
PDFtoMusic enables to convert or hear PDF files
without using the graphical user interface (GUI).
It is ran through a command line.
This operating mode is especially intended to
be used by visually impaired people, who cannot
navigate within the interface.
On Macintosh
:
When the program is installed, a p2mp command is
created in the Applications folder.
Run the terminal and enter
/Applications/p2mp followed by the complete name of
the PDF file to process.
On Linux
:
When the program is installed, a p2mp command is
created in the /usr/bin folder.
Run the terminal and enter
p2mp followed by the complete name of
the PDF file to process.
On Windows :
A command called p2mp is available in the program
install folder ("PDFtoMusic Pro" subfolder in
"C:\Program Files" or "C:\Program Files (x86)").
From an MS/DOS command window, move to this folder
then enter p2mp followed by the complete
name of the PDF file to process.
By default, the result file is created at
the same level as the PDF file.
This way of working
is provided for your personal purpose only. Using
it in an automated system for the benefit of a
third party is strictly forbidden.
Here are the available options:
-h,
--help |
display this
help |
|
-v
language
|
(EN,FR) turn
verbose output on |
default: off
|
-firstpage nnn |
first page to
process
|
default: 1
|
-lastpage nnn |
last page to
process
|
default:
document's last
|
-password
pass
|
password for
protected PDF
|
default: none
|
-signal unique_id
|
provide an unique ID for
slave computing (see below for all details)
|
default: none
|
-pathdest target_folder |
path where to
create result files
|
default: same
as the PDF file |
-pathtemp
target_folder
|
path where to create
temporary files
|
default: temp system folder
|
-format name |
XML,MXL,MYR,MID,KAR,
WAV,AIFF,MP3,OGG,BMP,
MYRWEB,SVG,SVGM,NONE |
default: XML
for PDFtoMusic Pro, MYR for PDFtoMusic
|
-multivoices n |
0 or 1
|
default: 1 |
-chords n
|
0 or 1
|
default: 1
|
-enhancedchords n |
0 or
1
|
default: 1 |
-tuplets
n
|
0 or 1 |
default: 1 |
-fingering
n |
0 or 1 |
default: 1 |
-keychanges
n
|
0 or 1 |
default: 1 |
-timesignaturechanges n |
0 or 1 |
default: 1 |
-lyrics n |
0 or 1 |
default: 1 |
-sharedlyrics
|
0 or 1
|
default: 1
|
-clefshift
n |
0 or 1 |
default: 1 |
-complexlines n
|
0 or 1
|
default: 0
|
-thinbeams n
|
0 or 1
|
default: 0
|
-breakadjust n
|
0 or 1
|
default: 1
|
-multirest n |
0 or 1 |
default: 1 |
-shortbar n |
0 or 1 |
default: 0 |
-leadgerlines n
|
0 or 1 |
default: 1 |
-tempi n |
0 or 1 |
default: 1 |
-dynamics n |
0 or 1 |
default: 1 |
-groupname n |
0 or 1 |
default: 1 |
-bracketgroup |
0 or 1 |
default: 0
|
-modernnotation n |
0 or 1 |
default: 0
|
-matchlevel n |
0 to 3
|
default: 2
|
-highdef
n |
0 or 1 |
default: 0
|
-register
xxxx |
xxxx is your
personal registration number |
|
-vs n
|
Virtual Singer activity, 0 or
1
|
default: 1
|
-play |
the result is
played once the PDF has
been processed |
default:
inactive
|
MyrWeb setup :
-mw_displayScore n: 0 or 1
|
(default 1) |
-mw_embedAllViews n: 0 or 1
|
(default 1) |
-mw_displayLyrics n: 0 or 1
|
(default 1) |
-mw_exportMp3 n: 0 or 1
|
(default 1) |
-mw_exportOgg n: 0 or 1
|
(default 0) |
-mw_exportWav n: 0 or 1
|
(default 0) |
-mw_seeKeyboard n: 0 or 1
|
(default 1) |
-mw_embedOriginal n: 0 or 1
|
(default 1) |
-mw_embedMXL n: 0 or 1
|
(default 0) |
-mw_embedXML n: 0 or 1
|
(default 0) |
-mw_embedMID n: 0 or 1
|
(default 0) |
-mw_embedMYR n: 0 or 1
|
(default 1) |
-mw_metronome n: 0 or 1
|
(default 1) |
-mw_compressData n: 0 or 1
|
(default 1) |
-mw_exportQuality n: 0 to 4
|
(default 2) |
-mw_autoGroups n: 0 or 1
|
(default 0) |
-mw_commands string
|
|
Slave Mode :
The "-signal" option allow to launch PDFtoMusic or
PDFtoMusic PRO from an external program, called
Father.
From the PDF file name provided (with a full path) a
result file will be generated.
Additionnaly, an additional file will be created to
inform the father about the computation status.
The parameter unique_id guaranteed multiple
simultaneous tasks using PDFtoMusic as Son, will not
collide.
Unique_id will determine the name of the additional
file created. The path to this file will be
-pathdest.
For example, if unique_id is "1962", PDFtoMusic will
create a file "C2F_1962.txt" and log every step of
the process. It is up to the caller to regularly
scan the presence of this file and delete it
immediately after reading.
It contains either :
- !DONE!=xxx to indicate that the processing is
ended
xxx value
can be:
0 Result file succesfully created
1 Document is password protected
2 Copy is not allowed
3 Can't extract text encoding
4 This is not a PDF file or the file is
damaged
5 There is no exploitable music data in this
file
|
-!PID! = xxxx, where xxxx is the PDFtoMusic PID
- The caption of the step
No recognition algorithm can be 100% reliable. In
the event you encounter translation errors,
PDFtoMusic offers some tools to help you fix them.
Fonts
Symbols
Staves and systems
Fonts
|
|
PDFToMusic extracts character fonts from the PDF
document, in order to "read" the music sheet.
However, when a PDF document is created, fonts are
not stored as is in the file, but transformed.
First, to shrink the file size, only used characters
are embedded.The name of the font is also often
encoded. Moreover, no clue is provided that would
enable PDFtoMusic to distinguish it without fail.
Some portions of text can be written with a default
font (Times, Courier, ...), directly managed by the
PDF format. In such cases, the font is not included
in the PDF file and won't appear in the recognized
font list.
In a first step, PDFtoMusic tries to extract a
consistent font name, and searches for it in its
known font name database. If the name is found, the
font is considered as "forced, application". You
can't change this status.
If the first step gets nowhere, PDFtoMusic applies
dedicated algorithms to distinguish between text and
music fonts. Fonts are then marked as "Text, auto",
or "Music, auto". You can change this status through
the "Correction > Fonts" menu option and, for
instance, change a text font to music font.
Tip: double-clicking a character on the PDF document
opens this window with the matching font selected.
This change can be limited to the document or
applied to all documents.
If limited to the document, only the current
document will be affected by this change.
If applied to all documents, each time the font name
will be found again in a PDF file, its state will be
forced. Of course, this option has to be used
wisely. You therefore create your own database of
the fonts that are the most frequently found.
To reset the font name bases, open this box with the
Command key held down.
Please note that these changes can be stored in the
PDF document, and kept from one use of this file to
another, or if you send the document to another
user.
In this last case, the font name database of the
recipient won't be altered.
Once fonts have been marked as music or text, they
are processed accordingly by PDFtoMusic.
Music fonts are optically analyzed, character by
character, in order to guess the meaning of each of
them.
For text fonts, the operation is a bit different.
PDFtoMusic uses first the Unicode data from the PDF
file. In most of the cases, the result is
consistent. However, some PDF files don't provide
accurate Unicode data. It's rather easy to realize:
recognized text is completely different from the
original one.
Here is for instance what you see in PDFtoMusic:
And once the result is loaded in
a music notation software:
It is
usually sufficient to correct this to uncheck
"Unicode Compliant", unicode data will no longer
be used.
You can also give full priority to Unicode by checking 'Strict Unicode '
PDFtoMusic offers also a solution to this problem by
making "Text font, with optical recognition"
editable. Once a font is marked as such, if it
appears that there are errors in the default optical
recognition (some characters are very close to each
other: I and 1, O and 0, etc), you can remap the
associated keystroke for any character. To do so,
click on the character preview, and then press the
key on your keyboard which you would like associated
with that particular character symbol. From this
point, the result of the recognition is changed.
The characters you modify appear in a different
color on the preview.
Amendments to the recognition are stored in a
database, so that when a strictly identical
character is found later in another document, it
will be amended automatically. PDFtoMusic "learns"
in order to ease your work.
To input a Unicode character which can't be entered
directly from your keyboard, like for instance,
Greek or Hebrew, let the command key (Apple key on
MacOS, Ctrl key on Windows) depressed, while
entering the Unicode value of the character (in
hexadecimal).
For instance, Command+0394 will define the capital
greek delta.
A summary of Unicode values can be found here: http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~tomw/java/unicode.html
Finally, some fonts don't include either music
symbols or digits and letters, but graphics.
Examples of this would be accordion register
indicators, guitar chord diagrams, embellishments,
etc.
In these cases, you can specify that the font has to
be processed as graphics.
The miscellaneous characters of this font will then
be considered to be graphics, and exported
accordingly in the result file.
Once imported into Harmony Assistant, it gives:
Symbol
correction
|
|
When moving the mouse pointer over a music symbol,
its color changes:
Right-clicking opens the contextual menu related to
this object.
In this menu, you can change the object settings.
This is very useful, for example, when PDFtoMusic
interprets a particular object incorrectly.
The red cross remove the object from the PDFtoMusic
processing.
The green cross restore the object initial state.
To select several objects, apply a right click
outside any object and define the area. All objects
in this area will be selected.
To add several objects to the existing selection, do
the same with Alt key pressed.
To remove several objects to the existing selection,
do the same with Command key pressed.
You can select all objects from the Edit menu.
All change applied to a selected object will be
applied to all selected objects with the same kind.
Staves
and systems
|
|
A music score is made of several pages. Each page
shows staff lines, joined in systems by a vertical
line on the left.
There can be therefore several systems in each page.
When a performer doesn't play anything during
several bars, the matching staff is often omitted in
the system.
PDFtoMusic applies complex algorithms to "follow"
staves from one system to another, and bring the
parts together.
You can amend this result through "Correction >
Staves and systems".
In this mode, the score is displayed in gray, while
systems are shown as a blue vertical bar and
numbered: S1, S2, etc.
Between each system, a glue tube enables you to merge
systems.
Between each staff, a pair of scissors enables you to
split the system.
Click the icon to apply the operation.
If you need to apply the same operation to the whole
page, the whole document, or to the same place on
all pages, right-click the icon and select the
operation mode from the contextual menu.
Each part is marked with a letter, possibly followed
by its name between brackets.
If you applied a change, the part name is displayed
in green.
Clicking the blue arrow in the staff opens the
contextual menu for relating the staff to the part:
- Automatic computation:
Cancels an applied change, so that the link between
staff and part is computed by PDFtoMusic again.
- Exclude from computation:
The staff will be ignored. It enables you to remove
a staff for computation, so that it isn't exported.
- Part list:
Choose in this list the part to which the staff has
to be related.
- Create new part:
Creates a new part and relates the staff to it.
If the error you fix has occurred on all pages,
right-clicking the staff name opens a contextual
menu, enabling to apply the staves arrangement of
the current page to all the other pages of the
document.
You can open the mixer from the Windows menu.
The mixer show the play state of the frontmost
document.
For each part we found :
- The singer language (if the part has related
lyrics). You can click on the flag to change it.
Right click to change all languages.
- The current sound level. It can vary according
to the general volume, the paning and the
dynamics.
- The volume and the paning. You can change
them.
- The octave shift.
- An icon to change the related instrument.
- An icon to mute the part. Right click mute all
the other parts.
At window bottom :
- An icon to reset all values.
- Surround enabling.
- General volume.
Virtual keyboard can be opened from the Windows
menu.
During music playback, played notes are highlighted.
You can select:
- Which part matches left hand, which one is
right hand
- Key color for left and right hand .
- Number of octaves to display.
- First octave to display.
Lyrics following window is available from the
"Windows" menu.
It displays lyrics from the miscellaneous staves of
the frontmost score.
In the title, the document name, the index of the
currently displayed staff with lyrics, and the total
number of staves with lyrics in the document.
Then, the icon bar :
The two first icons move from page to page (staff).
Then, the display scale and reverse contrast
display.
The lyrics text can be saved in an UTF-8 text file.
Last, an icon shows the detected lyrics language,
that can be changed through a click.
A right-click on the icon bar enables to deactivate
the icon name display.
During music playback, the currently sung syllable
is highlighted.
Clicking a syllable shows it in the document.
Annotations are graphic enrichments that can be
added to PDF documents.
They are displayed over the PDF, with a customisable
transparency level.
Original data in the PDF file are not altered, and
you can easily toggle annotations on or off.
For example:
Editing
|
|
Annotation palette can be switched on from the
Windows menu.
Annotation display can be deactivated from the
Presentation menu.
To add an annotation, activate the "Add" mode in the
annotation palette, then click on the document.
To modify an annotation, click it then change its
settings in the palette.
To modify several annotations at the same time,
click them whils keeping Shift key pressed.
To edit the text within the annotation, double-click
or right-click it.
When an arrow is present, you can move the
annotation but keep the arrow head in place by
keeping the Shift key down while dragging.
Copying/Pasting
|
|
You can copy, cut and paste annotations from one
page to another, or between documents. This is done
either through the Edit menu, or by using the
matching keyboard shortcuts.
To select all the annotations at once, use "Edit
> Select all annotations".
Saving, loading, sharing
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|
If you activated the "Store corrections and
annotations in PDF file" mode in the global setup,
"Document" topic, annotations will be saved within
the PDF file itself, otherwise they will be stored
in the "PDFtoMusic / Annotations" subfolder of your
user documents folder.
Please note that if you intent to share an annotated
PDF file with another user, the former mode is
recommended. The recipient will have to view it
using either PDFtoMusic or PDFtoMusic Pro to be able
to see the annotations.
If the recipient doesn't own PDFtoMusic or
PDFtoMusic Pro, you can:
- Export the document to "Multi-pages SVG"
format ("File > Export" menu). The recipient
will be able to view and print this file by
using a Web browser.
- Export the document in Myriad Web format
("File > Export" menu). If published on the
Internet, everybody will be able to view, play
or print the document along with its
annotations.
Animating
|
|
Annotation opacity can change progressively
according to the score playing status.
You define the annotation opacity at rest (when
music is not playing), when playing, and when a
given measure range is reached.
When there is break symbols you can define at what
time the animating is launched.
Animation will occur with the selected opacity
speed.
For instance, you can define an annotation that will
only appear when a given position in the score is
reached by the playing music.
Animations are available when the PDF is played from
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro, or when playng a Myrweb
file in a Web browser.
Tips
|
|
Some graphical objects (highlighted background,
roval surrounding, etc) are based on peudo-random
values, that makes each object different from the
others, but ensures an identical rendering on any
computer. You can select a slightly different
appearance for the obbject through the "right-click
> Regenerate" option.
Virtual Singer
|
Introduction
|
|
Virtual Singer is an additional module
for PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro, but also our score editors Melody Assistant
or Harmony Assistant and our player Melody Player.
Virtual Singer will make your computer sing:
it will generate
human voices for staves with lyrics.
Virtual Singer can be configured according to
your
needs, by modifying
timbre,
intonation, and
kind
of voice (man, woman, tenor, soprano,
etc.). Furthermore,
several different voices, in different
languages,
will be able to sing at the same time.
Virtual Singer can also sing "La-La-La", follow
the shaped-notes nomenclature (solmization), sing
the note names, or
even
automatically generate Jazz Scat.
The current version of Virtual Singer includes
the following languages: Northern French, Southern
French, UK English,
US English,
Latin, Spanish, Italian, Finnish, German, Occitan, Japanese (Romaji),
but also Bulgarian, Catalan, Slavon (liturgical slavic language), Czech,
Dutch, Esperanto, Basque (Euskadi),
Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Macedonian, Portuguese, Romani (Gypsy),
Romanian, Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, Turkish and Vietnamese
Installation
|
|
Virtual Singer installs automatically along new versions of our programs, available on
our web site: www.myriad-online.com.
License
|
|
During evaluation of the add-on, each time the
application is launched, you will only be able to
process a certain
number of sung parts. When this number is
reached, Virtual Singer
becomes "voiceless".
You can then either purchase a license for Virtual
Singer (Order
submenu)
or quit the program and run it again to
continue to try Virtual
Singer.
Virtual Singer
Voice technical background Generalities
|
The human voice is amazingly complex, and the Virtual
Singer software does not pretend to replace it, but only to approximate
it as closely as possible.
We will describe here the basic concepts required to better understand
how Virtual Singer works.
A human voice can be characterized as follows:
-
The timbre (the voice "fingerprint"), which differentiates one
person from another because it depends on each person's vocal tract.
-
The effects, related to the singing technique.
These settings can be adjusted to approximate a given
voice as closely as possible.
Voice
Singing follows the same rules as speaking. The same fundamental
principles
can be applied to both of them.
The lungs generate an air stream, which goes
through the vocal chords.
Vocal chords are twin infoldings of mucous
membrane, positioned
at the base of the larynx, which act as a vibrator or "reed".
The vibration frequency is controlled by the singer in order to produce
the
required note pitch.
This original sound is then shaped by a set of cavities which
form the vocal tract (mouth, nasal fossae...).
The singer controls the opening and capacity of
these cavities to produce resonances, and in doing so, modifies
the
sound emitted by the vocal folds.
Speech and Language
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|
Speech is an acoustic way of communication. It is a convention
shared by people speaking the same language.
Each language has its own characteristics, and uses a limited number
of sounds (about thirty) called "phonemes". These phonemes are
then
grouped to become a syllable, a word, a sentence...
Some phonemes are common to several languages, because most
spoken languages come from the same origin. In addition, the range of
possible
phonemes is also limited by physical constraints of the vocal tract.
Phonemes
|
|
We won't be using the standard acoustic classification
of phonemes used by phoneticians. For a more in-depth discussion,
see one of the various specialized texts on the subject.
Here are the basic groups of phonemes as used in
Virtual Singer:
-
vowels use the vocal chords, are weakly
sounded, and can be stretched
ad lib. They are the essential component of the sung voice.
Some languages (like English) use vowel groups called diphthongs, which
"slide" from one vowel sound to another (like
in "pie", "though"...).
-
voiced consonants are consonants which use the
vocal chords. They
are stretchable (Z => Zzzzz). These consonants also use the
resonances
of nasal cavities (M, N...) or a sound generated by the air stream (Z,
J, V...).
-
unvoiced consonants are stretchable and use only
turbulence
generated by the air stream, but not the vocal chords. These consonants
have no pitch (CH, F, S...).
- plosive consonants are brief,
unstretchable sounds, voiced
(G, D, B..) or not (K, T, P...).
Phoneme pronunciation
|
|
|
Question: What
is the difference between singing and speaking? |
|
While speaking, the frequency (note pitch) produced by the
vocal chords only varies a little. It allows the speaker to
provide the
intonation (prosody) of the sentence. In singing,
the frequency produced
by the vocal chords follows a melody and is no longer related
to the
intonation.
The main characteristic of the sung voice is the stretching
of
some phonemes over time. Since some syllables must be extended more
than
others, the singer stretches the more easily and artistically
stretchable
phonemes, i.e. the vowels, whose sound is closest to that of a
musical
instrument.
Virtual Singer
Voice technical background
Sung voice synthesis
|
In voice synthesis, for speech as well as for singing,
three main methods can be used:
-
vocal tract simulation,
-
connection of recorded elements,
-
formant synthesis.
Vocal tract simulation
|
|
Historically, this is the oldest method. The very first speech
synthesis was designed for a mechanical automaton, using a collection
of tubes and valves to simulate a vocal tract.
The computer models of this process haven't given a convincing result
to date, because of its extreme complexity.
Connection of recorded elements
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|
A singer or a speaker is digitally recorded,
in order to store
the whole set of phonemes (or groups of phonemes).
Then these samples are connected in sequence to rebuild the voice. Complex
algorithms are used to alter the recorded phonemes and make them
follow
the vocal intonation (prosody).
This method provides excellent results for standard
speech.
However, the algorithms are poorly
adapted to generating a singing voice, because of the much wider
frequency ranges. Another drawback of this method is the need for
very large voice
description files.
To define another voice, it is necessary to record
another speaker/singer. Furthermore, the whole set of phonemes
for each language must
be recorded separately.
To create multilingual software, it is thus necessary to record several
different speakers/singers, and to store these samples in a huge
file, often several megabytes in size.
Formant synthesis
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|
This synthesis is based on the analysis of vocal sound.
Acousticians have determined that vocal tract resonances amplify a
small number of frequency
ranges, related to the spoken phoneme. These frequency ranges have been
called "formants".
A formant is characterized by its frequency (pitch), its bandwidth
(width of frequency range) and its energy (strength).
|
Note:
In electronics or computing, a formant can be
simulated by a resonant bandpass filter. |
|
In the early 1960s, the first devices used electronic filters to
generate
recognizable phonemes. Acousticians then realized that only three to
six formants are sufficient to generate a phoneme with acceptable
quality. The advantage of this method is that only a small amount of
data is required
to generate a phoneme, and it is far easier to modify these data
slightly to produce another voice timbre.
However, the result is generally less realistic than with recorded
speech elements.
This third method is used in Virtual Singer.
Virtual Singer
Voice synthesis settings
Virtual Singer palette
|
When Virtual Singer is installed, the Windows
menu gives access to its palette.
The Virtual Singer palette shows the number of singers as well
as the language used by each of them.
In the Virtual Singer palette, several objects represent
the actions
you can perform:
Activate and
deactivate Virtual Singer: the colored light
in the upper left corner shows the status of Virtual Singer. A click on
the bulb toggles this status. When Virtual Singer is activated, staves
with lyrics are sung.
When Virtual Singer is activated, a stage is
displayed, on which
each character represents a sung staff. Since our programs
can
manage several sung staves within a single document, there may be
several
characters on the stage.
Character location on the stage shows:
-
laterally, the voice panning (right or left
location in the stereophonic
space)
-
by its depth, the voice's volume
Under each character, the name of the related staff and a flag
indicating its language are displayed. You can mix
staves of different languages in the same document. We have already
seen that is even possible to
change languages within a single lyrics staff.
Double-clicking on the character opens the simple
settings window. A right-click (Shift+click on the Macintosh) on
the character
opens a pop-up menu which allows you to:
-
Activate or deactivate this singer
-
Edit the singer's icon
-
Select the singer's icon from a predefined list.
A click on the flag allows you to change the singer's language.
Tuning the computing mode
To compute a sung staff, Virtual Singer creates an
invisible digital
audio track, and stores all the voice data in it.
This computation is quite complex and may take a few tens of seconds.
The computing mode slider lets you select whether this work must
be completed before the music starts (0% value) or whether a
large part of this job can be performed while music is playing (100%).
This setting depends strongly on your computer. Select
its value for optimal performance.
If the number of sung staves is too large or
your computer is not
fast enough, it won't have time to perform voice
computation while the music is playing.
You will hear breaks in the sung part. In that case, decrease
the value of computing mode, to require that more of it be finished
before the music begins to play.
In Harmony/Melody Assistant, when a Shape-note staff is included
in
a document, a little icon with the sharp symbol appears on the Virtual
Singer palette. Click on this symbol to toggle whether accidentals are
sung.
Virtual Singer
Voice synthesis settings
Basic settings
|
Double-clicking on the singer's icon in the Virtual
Singer palette opens the pre-defined voice selection window.
In this dialog box, you can select another voice from the list
and apply an octave shift.
You can also define a new voice and save it in a file.
Send us by e-mail any interesting voices you create, and
we'll make them available to
other users.
Using "Edit timbre"
and "Edit effects" buttons, this window also
lets you access the advanced
voice settings.
The octave shift lets you change the octave of
the sung part without
modifying the musical symbols on the staff.
The "Try" button makes the program sing a simple
sentence with
the selected voice.
The "Play/Stop" button starts to play the
frontmost document
with the selected voice.
The choir size slider lets you specify that the
voice will actually
be composed of several choir members singing in unison. A value of 1
means this voice is a soloist. To
improve the effect produced by this kind of choir,
you can apply a reverberation effect to the staff
|
Note:
Changes made to the voice settings will only
be applied the next time music is started. |
|
Virtual Singer
Voice synthesis settings
Effects settings
|
To be able to control the advanced settings effectively, you should
understand the concepts of phoneme and formant (refer to the chapters
on Voice
technical background).
- weak and strong velocity:
When a syllable is sung, the main phoneme is stretched (stretchable
vowel), and most of the power is applied to this phoneme. The strong
velocity
setting gives the volume to be applied to this strong phoneme, and the
weak velocity gives the volume to be applied to the other, weaker ones.
- velocity ratio:
Notes of the sung staff include velocity values (output power).
The velocity ratio defines the proportion in which singing
takes these values
into account.
- pitch attack:
A singer can start singing a note slightly lower than the pitch at
which it is written. This can be
tuned by the frequency attack. This parameter is given in tenths of a
tone.
A negative value (which is generally the case) means the syllable
starts lower than the actual note pitch.
- time shift:
This is the maximum amount of time, in milliseconds, between the time
a syllable is sung and the time it should be. It simulates the
imprecision
of a singer in time.
- min rest duration:
In order to avoid an abrupt cut-off in the voice each time a brief rest
is encountered, this parameter allows you to define the minimum
duration (in 100ths
of second) required for a rest to be applied. Rests shorter than
this will not be taken into account in the singing voice.
- choir detuning:
When the singer's voice is defines as a choir (see Basic
settings), this parameter sets the maximum imprecision of each
choir
member. A high value enhances the crowd effect, but makes the voices
less
accurate.
- jitter:
This is a random variation around a theoretical value. It is defined by
a
maximum value (jitter power) and a variation speed.
- F0 jitter (fundamental frequency):
This gives a quavering voice, i.e. a small, fast, random variation
of the frequency sung. - formant jitter on formant #1 (F1),
formant
#2 (F2), formant
#3 (F3):
This changes the voice timbre while the note is sung (the singer
changes his mouth shape slightly). - volume jitter
This produces "unintentional" volume variations while a note is sung.
All of these parameters help to make the voice sound more natural.
- Drift can be applied to the fundamental
frequency (F0) or
to the volume.
This is a way to smoothly change from one value to another. Because
of its physical nature, the vocal tract evolves from one value to
another
by a deformation.
Drift can be adjusted with its upward ratio,
its downward ratio, its minimum value and its maximum value.
- upward and downward ratios
Drift begins
after a note ends. Its duration is expressed as a percentage
of the next note's duration.
If the value increases (changing from a weak note to a strong one,
or from a low-pitched note to a high-pitched one), the upward ratio is
used.
If the value decreases, the downward ratio is used.
- minimum and maximum duration
In order to avoid a duration that is too short or too, you can
impose minimum and maximum limits on the drift duration, in hundredths
of second.
- Vibrato affects the fundamental frequency
(F0)
It is a slow, regular variation of the fundamental frequency.
Note that this should not be confused with F0 jitter, which is a fast,
random
variation.
- minimal frequency
is the base frequency of the vibrato oscillation (in tenths of
Hertz). Vibrato commonly ranges from 50 to 70 tenths of Hertz. - frequency
ratio
lets you increase the vibrato speed when a high-pitched
note is sung. Its value is the number of semitones above A4 (440 Hz)
needed
to increase the vibrato frequency by 1 Hz. For example, with a minimal
frequency of 60 (6 Hz) and a frequency
ratio of 12 semitones (one octave), an A4 will be sung with a 6 Hz
vibrato,
and an A5 with a 7 Hz vibrato... - delay
is the delay before the vibrato actually starts. It is given in
hundredths
of second. - rise time
is the time during which the vibrato power increases smoothly before
reaching its maximum value. It is expressed in hundredths of second. - vibrato
depth
is its maximum amplitude (depth) in hundredths of a tone. - frequency
ratio
lets you increase the vibrato depth when a high-pitched note is sung.
Its value is the number of semitones above A4 (440 Hz) needed to
increase
the vibrato depth by one semitone. For example, with a depth of 20 (1/5
of a tone) and a frequency ratio
of 12 semitones (one octave), an A4 will be sung with a depth of 1/5 of
a tone,
and an A5 with a depth of one semitone+1/5 of tone...
Virtual Singer
Voice synthesis settings
Timbre settings
|
To be able to control the advanced settings effectively, you should
understand the concepts of phoneme and formant (refer to the chapters
on Voice technical background).
This window allows you to modify the singer's voice
timbre.
- A set of sliders
lets you shift the frequency range of each formant. A
value below 100% shifts the formant toward the low-pitched
frequencies,
a value above 100% toward the high-pitched ones.
- Bass/Treble
is a filter to increase the bass and treble frequencies of the voice
output.
- Gain
The above settings can soften the overall power of voice output. The
gain
slider allows you to compensate for this artifact.
- Advanced settings button
The above settings modify all phonemes globally. It is also possible to
change the rendering of each
phoneme individually. As you may notice, each singer has his own
personal accent, his own way of pronouncing certain phonemes. It is
therefore possible to refine a voice by replacing one or several
phonemes with user-defined ones.
Virtual Singer
Editing Phonemes
|
|
Very important: This chapter refers to
advanced concepts of digital
signal processing.
Some knowledge of acoustics and digital signal processing will be
needed to make use of it.
|
|
We saw earlier that phonemes are considered
the basic acoustic elements for the spoken or sung voice (see the
chapters on
"Voice technical background").
Virtual Singer uses complex algorithms in order to
synthesize
these phonemes.
This kind of synthesis, called formants synthesis, uses
original
internal algorithms, inspired mainly by the writings of D. Klatt, as well as other
informational
sources.
The algorithm has been designed and refined following our own research
into the reproduction of the sung voice.
While editing the voice timbre, an "Advanced" button
opens the dialog
box for defining the individual phonemes. Changes made in this window
only modify
the current singer's voice. Other voices will remain unchanged.
A few technical details
|
|
|
Question: How
does Virtual Singer generate a phoneme? |
|
An excitation digital signal (historically called a "glottal
source")
is generated, depending on the power and fundamental frequency of the
phoneme
to be sung. This signal is composed of a parabolic half-period,
followed by
a silent half-period (glottal stop). The first harmonic (the
fundamental
frequency), the second harmonic (twice the fundamental
frequency), and the thrid harmonic (triple the
fundamental frequency) are then amplified, in order to approximate as
nearly as possible
the aural rendering of a sung vocal source. This source is then
amplified to a greater or lesser degree, according to the voicing value.
Then the processing is divided into two parts:
Cascade processing: a noise, called aspiration
noise,
is added to the excitation source. This signal is then processed by a serial
filter sequence (cascade), each filter corresponding to a formant.
Parallel processing: a noise, called frication
noise, is added to the excitation source.
The first order
derivative of this signal is then processed by a parallel filter set,
each filter corresponding to a formant. The amplitude of each
formant is processed, in order to increase or decrease the respective
influence
of each formant in the output signal.
The results of the two processes listed above are then
added, and modulated if
necessary by a low-frequency (20 Hz) oscillator to simulate a rolling
effect (as in Spanish "R"s).
After applying the output gain and treble/bass setting,
the output signal
is finally complete.
In concrete terms, this algorithm has major implications
on how a phoneme is processed:
- The amplitude for each formant is only
processed by the parallel
portion of the processing algorithm. Thus, even if a formant amplitude
is
set to zero, this formant will still have an effect on the resulting
signal,
because of its action in the cascade processing.
- Aspiration noise passes through the cascade
filter set. It
is then highly distorted by the phoneme's formants, and its output is a
more filtered (softer) noise, which can be used to simulate the effects
of breath,
generated at the far back of the vocal tract.
- The first order derivative of the frication noise
passes
through
the parallel filter set. It gives a more high-pitched noise,
which
can be used to simulate the sibilant, whistling noises made by the
front part of the
mouth.
Fragments
|
|
The basic phonetic element is the phoneme.
But we have seen that some complex phonemes, such as diphthongs, can be
made up of several
successive states.
Because of this, we must define the notion of a fragment, which
represents a "static" state within a phoneme.
Thus, a phoneme can be made of one or several fragments.
The list on the left of this window displays the
complete list of all
fragments needed
to pronounce any phoneme in any language. Fragments
displayed in bold are used by the current
language.
|
Important Note:
In this window, you can change the pronunciation of one or several
fragments. These changes are only applied to the
singer currently being edited. Modifying a fragment in this window will
only
alter pronunciation for this singer, not the others. |
|
Once a fragment is modified, it is displayed in color in the list. When
selecting a modified fragment, it is possible to retore its
default
values by clicking the Original button below the list.
In the right part of this window, several graphical
objects allow you to
modify the fragment data.
In the topmost part of the window, a pop-up menu shows
the fragment
type:
Vowel means this fragment can be stretched
when the syllable
it is included into is extended in time.
If the syllable does not include any vowels, Virtual Singer will try
to stretch transitional vowel fragments.
In the absence of either of those two types, vocalized
consonant fragments will be stretched, and then unvocalized
consonants.
The fragment duration can be changed through a
slider.
This value is the natural time for the fragment. If this
fragment
is stretched, its duration will be increased.
|
Note:
When a value is changed graphically (through
a slider, for example), its digital value appears in a frame on the
bottom
right of the window. |
|
Static part of a fragment
|
|
These are the set of values used to define the static
part of the fragment, i.e. the portion that is independent of any
transitions to or from adjacent
fragments. These parameters can be modified using the large graphical
area in
the right part of the window.
Formants are displayed as triangles of
colored lines.
For each formant, the center
frequency (in Hertz), Amplitude (dB) and bandwidth
(width of the triangle's base, in Hz) can be changed. A set of
checkboxes below this graphic allows you to activate or
deactivate
each formant in the parallel part of the voice generator.
|
Note:
As explained above, even if a formant is deactivated,
and is no longer displayed on the graphics, its frequency and bandwidth
are still used in the cascade part of the
voice generator. |
|
On the right, a set of vertical sliders alows you to change the levels
of voicing (av), rolling (Rl), aspiration
(asp) and frication
(af).
|
Tip:
While editing a formant middle
frequency or bandwidth graphically, two vertical lines
are displayed.
They
show the upper and lower bounds for the parameter being modified, for
that formant, among all the phonemes in the
list. This helps you avoid setting the parameter to too "exotic"
a value. |
|
Fragment transition curves
|
|
During a spoken or sung part, the transition from one
fragment
to another
is not instantaneous: the next fragment starts to be said before the
previous
one is completely finished. This smooth transition between fragments is
called coarticulation.
For each parameter (formant frequency,
amplitude, bandwidth and various levels), the graphic area on the
bottom of the window lets you define its transition curve over time.
The parameter whose
curve is displayed is circled in red in the upper area.
On the transition curve, by convention, the previous
value of the parameter is represented by the lowest value on the
graph's vertical axis. The static value for the currently selected
fragment (selected in the upper
graphics) is represented by the highest value on the axis.
|
Note: this is
a schematic display, not directly related to the effective or relative
values of
the
parameter described. |
|
The parameter's transition from its previous value to the
current
static
value is displayed as two segments:
The first segment on the left, whose
duration
is "stolen"
from the previous fragment's time. This segment will make the parameter
evolve from the previous fragment's
static value to an intermediate value, defined by the two vertical
sliders to the left of the curve.
The ratio slider (Ra) lets you select
the importance of the previous
parameter value relative to that of the current fragment's static value
(the value to be reached during the transition).
For example: a 0% ratio sets the intermediate value to
the value to be
reached.
A 100% ratio sets the intermediate value to the
previous parameter
value.
A 50% ratio sets the intermediate value to the average of the previous
and current values.
The starting offset (Od) allows you to add a
fixed
amount to the intermediate
value.
For example: with a ratio (Ra) of 50%, and an
offset (Od) of 100, intermediate value is equal to 100 + the average of
the previous
and current values.
On the curve, the second segment gives the
transition time between the intermediate value and the value to be
reached (the static value of
this parameter for the current
fragment). This time is "stolen" from the current fragment.
Symmetrically, the two segments on the right, with a
corresponding pair of sliders, allow you to define the transition from
the current static value to the static
value of the next fragment.
Thus a transition curve can be defined from the
previous
fragment's static value, as well as to the next fragment's
static value.
Which transition curve segments are used depends on
which fragment has a higher priority.
If the current fragment has a higher priority than the previous one,
its "transition from previous" segments will be used, instead of the
previous fragment's "transition to next" segments. Priority
is given by the order of the fragment in the fragment list: the higher
in the list, the greater the priority.
Example:
If the list only includes three fragments,
"a, b, c" in that order, and the syllable to be sung is "babc", the
following
transitions will be made for each fragment parameter:
- static value of fragment "b",
- transition to the value of fragment "a",
using the two first
segments of the "a" transition curve (because "a" has a greater
priority
than "b"),
- static value of fragment "a",
- transition to the value of fragment "c",
using the two last
segments of the "a" transition curve (because "a" has a greater
priority
than "c"),
- static value of fragment "c",
- transition to the value of fragment "b",
using the two last
segments of the "b" transition curve (because "b" has a greater
priority
than "c"),
- static value of fragment "b".
Action buttons
|
|
These buttons, located in the bottom-right corner of the
window, perform several actions:
Try button
You can try the modified fragment by typing a
simple sentence
in the corresponding frame, then clicking the button. Then, a list
of fragments used to pronounce the sentence is
displayed. The symbols > and < between the
fragment names give
the
relative priority of each fragment compared to the adjacent ones.
Note: whenever you select a fragment in
the fragment list, a sample word for that fragment will be inserted in
the
text
area.
Language pop-up menu
When another language has been selected,
fragments used
in that language
appear in bold in the fragment list.
Copy/Paste buttons
These buttons allow you to copy all of the
parameters and
transition curves of
a fragment, in order to paste them on another fragment.
What is RealSinger?
|
|
RealSinger is a Virtual Singer extension
that allows you to use more realistic voices to sing lyrics.
The method for generating synthesized
voices is different from that used by the regular Virtual Singer.
Virtual Singer's voice generation
algorithms, as described in the Technical
background
chapter, use
completely
artificial voices, produced with the Formant synthesis method.
RealSinger algorithms are based on
recordings of real human voice elements. These voice samples are then
processed to extract the voicing parameters for each phoneme.
This unique process enables us to get around the biggest problem with
the usual Recorded elements connection method: by keeping
only the voicing information, data files for describing and storing a
voice
are extremely short (usually less than 1 Mb for a full voice in one
language),
and the voice can be re-synthesized at any pitch without noticeable
distortion.
How does it work?
|
|
To be able to sing using a new voice,
RealSinger needs a recorded sample of each phoneme of a given language,
spoken
(or sung) by the same speaker (or singer).
It then processes all these sound
samples and extracts the voicing parameters for each phoneme.
The voicing parameter data
can then be either embedded in the document file itself, or saved into
a separate file to be re-used later in another piece.
To generate a
voice following the lyrics and melody, specialized algorithms are used
to
process pitch changes and to simulate coarticulation (smooth
transitions between two consecutive phonemes).
How do I use RealSinger voices?
|
|
RealSinger voices are selected
in the same way as regular Virtual Singer voices. They are marked
by an RS icon in the voice list.
Simply select one of these voices in
the voice list to have a staff sung by RealSinger.
For more information about how to have a staff sung by
Virtual Singer or RealSinger, please read the appropriate
chapters.
You can record your own voice to
build a new RealSinger voice file. The following chapters explain how
to record,
and how to adjust settings for this new voice.
RealSinger provides more realistic
sung voices, but the computing time is longer, and the voices can be
less versatile
(best within a smaller pitch range).
Therefore, it
is generally best to use a standard Virtual Singer voice while creating
a
sung piece, and only select and adjust the RealSinger voice at the very
end, once the piece is completed.
RealSinger
Your
First Real Singer Voice
|
To
learn how Real Singer works, let's quickly create
a new Real Singer
voice, for Latin songs. Why Latin? This language
has few distinct
sounds, so you'll be able to record quickly. Also,
there are a number
of public-domain Latin hymns that you can use to
test the voice.
What
you need
|
|
You
must be able to record your own voice to your
computer's hard drive.
The simplest (not necessarily best) method is to
use a microphone of
the kind designed to connect directly to your
computer's sound card
input. However, microphones for professional audio
usually must be
pre-amplified before your sound card can record
the signal. Or, you can
use an external recording device, and send its
line-out or headphone
signal (never the loudspeaker signal!) to your
computer's sound card
line-in. You
can even do the recording with another computer,
then transfer the
digital audio files. But for now, we will assume
that you are recording
your live voice directly to your computer.
Let's record!
|
|
|
When you are ready to record, find a
quiet
area
at a quiet time.
- On Melody/Harmony: create a new, very simple
document with just one staff. To the left
of the staff is a set of
icons, shown here. Click the black
triangle
to open the staff-specific menu, and
choose "staff with lyrics." If the
Virtual Singer stage does not open
automatically,
- On PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro: load a PDF file that includes
lyrics in latin, e.g. "Ave Maria" in the "PDFtoMusicDemos" folder
Then select the
Virtual Singer palette in the "Windows" menu.
|
The Virtual Singer palette is a stage,
shown
here in reduced size. Standing on the
stage is the picture of your
singer, and underneath his picture is a
question mark. Click the
question mark, and choose "Latin" from
the available
languages.
The question mark changes to an icon. Then
double-click the singer. In
a few moments, a dialog box appears. Click
"Real Singer".
|
|
A
new dialog box appears. Since you will be
recording live,
click "record." Be
quiet while Real Singer measures the background
noise. If it is too
loud, try
again. After Real Singer measures the backgrund
noise, it asks you to
say "aah" for
several seconds. It is
measuring your natural speaking pitch, so that you
can listen to sample
words at that pitch.
|
If Real Singer insists that
there is too
much noise,
but you
don't know why, possible solutions
are discussed in advanced
recording
techniques. For now, you can
bypass thee noise measurement by
choosing "set"
instead
of "record." If you do that, then
the next dialog box allows you to
manually choose the frequency at
which words will be presented. A
range
of 90-130Hz is comfortable for
most men, double that for most
women. |
|
The
Real Singer recording palette will appear. At the
left
are a list of words that
you must record. Real Singer will offer you the
words in order, unless
you
un-check the "automatic" box. You can
save an audio file of
each recorded word by checking that option. At top
is the current word.
If you wish to hear it without recording, click
"listen to the word."
When you wish to record the word, click "get."
Real Singer
will play the
word, then you will repeat it. Try to imitate what
you hear. If your
voice is too loud or too soft, get the word again.
If your voice is OK, Real Singer will
process
the sound
and identify the phoneme. The first Latin
word is "quid," and Real
Singer is
looking for a drawn-out "u" sound. At the
right is a reduced-scale
image
showing what Real Singer found for a
sample recording. The bright area
in the
middle is the identified sound. The dark
curtains at left and right
block off the "q-" and "-id" portions.
|
|
The vowel corresponding to English "ee" sound is
unusual. In Latin (and in some other languages),
Real Singer uses the
word "si" for this phoneme. In English, it appears
in the word "ease."
Many speakers pronounce this vowel with the lips
horizontal, as if they
are smiling. But good singers produce the vowel with
the lips rounded,
as they do for other vowels. If you can, record the
"ee" sound with
rounded, pursed lips, similar to the German
u-umlaut. If you record the
"ee" sound with a smiling face, it will sound shrill
when sung at
higher
pitches.
|
Sometimes, Real Singer cannot
find the
phoneme, or
locates it incorrectly. You can
move the "curtains" by dragging
them
with
the mouse cursor. You can play
back the whole recorded word, or
just
the selected portion. It is
important to choose phonemes
carefully
- these are the building blocks
used to construct all other
words!
More
information about how to adjust
the selection range is found in
the "Adjusting
phoneme
selection
range" chapter.
When you are
satisfied, click "validate" to
add the processed phoneme to
the Real Singer voice. |
|
After
you validate a word, its appearance on the word
list changes. You know
which words you have validated, and which ones
remain. If you are not
using automatic recording, you can choose words in
any order, or
re-record words that have already been validated.
If necessary, you can
save incomplete results, and finish the list at
some other time. You
can even leave some words un-recorded, and Real
Singer will use
synthesized
sound from the Virtual Singer database as
substitutes (not
recommended). For
best sound quality, you should record all of the
words, in a single
session, so that your own voice is consistent
from one word to another.
After
you have finished recording your voice, close
Real Singer to
return to the Virtual Singer dialog box.
|
By default, Virtual Singer
asumes that
your
voice is male,
and that you will use it for notes
on the Treble staff. Therefore the
sound
will play one octave lower than
the notes are written. If you are
female,
or if you are going to use this
voice on the Bass staff or with
Treble-8vb, then set the octave
shift to zero. You can also
change the singer's stage
appearance, if you wish. |
|
While
the Virtual Singer dialog box is open, click "Add
To List" Give
your voice a name and save it. Then move it in the
Real Singer Latin voices folder that you created
by right-click.
This name identifies the voice file, not the
character shown on stage.
The saved voice file can be used by any singer of
the same language, in
any other documents. The stage character always
has the name of the
staff he sings, rather than the name of the voice
file he uses.
Click OK to close the Virtual Singer
dialog
box. You are
now back in
your music document, with the stage still showing.
Save your
document, even though it does not have any music.
Using your new Real Singer voice
|
|
Open
the sample Latin song "Exsultate" in
"VirtualSinger/Demos/Latin" subfolder. There
are two singers, "Ron Real" and "Vic Virtual."
Double-click the image
of "Ron" to open Virtual Singer. Ron starts as the
default male Virtual
Singer, but
you will change his voice. In the menu of voices,
find the Real Singer
voice
file that you just created (remember, you put it
in the Latin folder).
Virtual Singer may tell you that this change will
lose the previous
setup. Confirm,
then click OK to return to the stage.
"Vic"
sings with the default male Virtual Singer voice.
Leave "Vic" that way,
unless you are female and want "Vic" to sing with
a female voice. If
so, double-click "Vic," and select "Soprano." This
voice is not in the
Latin folder, but Virtual Singer is multi-lingual.
Confirm the change
of
setup, and click OK to return to the Virtual
Singer stage and music.
Save
the file (save as) with a different name. Now,
play
the music. Real Singer must pre-calculate the
voices, so there
will be a
delay. "Ron" and "Vic" will sing together in
harmony, with "Ron" the
higher voice. You can mute one voice or the other,
if you wish.
Most
likely, your "Ron" voice is rough. Double-click
"Ron" to open
Virtual Singer, then click "Edit voice." A
new dialog box
appears. Under "timbre," choose a value
near 30 for each of
glottal and opening. Re-play it, and hear the
difference in "Ron's"
voice.
|
If you save the music, it will
retain the
changes made to "Ron" for this
music only, without changing the
voice
file you recorded. If you want the
changed voice to be available to
other music, within Virtual Singer
you can "save preset" to a new
voice
file. Don't try to use "Ron" to
sing English, or any language
other
than Latin.
He doesn't understand it, because
you did not record most of the
phonemes needed to make words in
another language. |
|
When you play your Real Singer voice, you may
notice
that some phonemes are too loud, or too soft,
relative to the others.
If a phoneme is not consistent with others, you
will hear the same
problem each time the phoneme is used. To fix this
problem, open the
Virtual Singer palette, double-click on the
singer, and choose "edit
voice," then the "advanced" tab. Choose "edit
phonemes." Find the
offending phoneme in the list at the left, and
select it. On the right
you
will see several vertical sliding controls. The
rightmost two control
the phoneme volume at start and peak. Move these
up or down, as needed.
Play your music again. When you are satisfied with
the relative volume
of
the phonemes, save the voice preset. There are
numerous other phoneme
adjustments available.
Congratulations
on creating your first Real Singer voice! The
rest
of this Real Singer documentation describes ways
to improve your
voice
recording, ways to improve the precision of the
voice fragments, and
ways to use Real Singer adjustments to improve the
recorded voice.
RealSinger
Adjusting
phoneme selection range
|
After you record each word, the program tries to locate
a particular phoneme in this word (the one written in capitals in the
sample
word), and to remove the rest of the word. Sometimes it succeeds,
sometimes not. You can keep the program
selection as it is, or find your own. Sometimes your ear is better than
the program's mathematical analysis, so it is recommended that you find
your
own selection range in the recorded sample, even if the computed result
appears correct.
Below
is a list of the various kinds of phonemes you might be asked to
record, and what area the program expects to be selected before
validating.
Obturation
|
|
When saying a voiced plosive consonant (G, B, D), just before this
consonant is spoken, the mouth shuts completely, and the voice sound is
muffled during a short period of time. But this period is not
completely silent: while the mouth is closed, air continues to
go out from the lungs and the vocal chords continue to vibrate. Air
pressure
increases in the closed mouth until the lips open again, and the
consonant is emitted with a strong power (which is why these phonemes
are
called plosives).
Obturation is the portion spoken with a closed mouth that you can view
on the
sound graph: a soft period surrounded by stronger phonemes.
|
Note for German:
In German, voiced plosive consonants cannot be
located at the end of a word: they are said as their unvoiced
equivalent (G->K, B->P, D->T).
However, here you will need to pronounce a voiced consonant at
the end of the word. To make it easier, imagine that there is a very
short
vowel after the plosive. For example, if you are asked to record a
syllable written "caB", pronounce it as "caB(e)" with a very short
ending "e".
|
Transitional vowels (trans)
|
|
Usually these vowels are used only in a short form (never elongated).
You will have to pronounce the target word a little bit differently
than in "real life," and elongate these vowels. When setting the
selection range bounds, be careful to hear only this
vowel, not the one that follows.
"Static"
vowels
|
|
These are called "static" because their phonetic value does not vary
over time
when pronounced.
You can select only a short portion of the vowel if you wish. Select a
section in which
the timbre you hear seems correct, and the pitch and power variation is
not too significant. The shorter the section you select, the smaller
the
resulting voice file will be.
|
Note for German:
In German, there are "long" and "short" versions
of vowels.
However, in order to enable the software to analyze enough data for
"short" vowels, you will have to prolong these vowels at least half
a second, even if that is not how they are supposed to sound in
German.
|
Diphthong first part (diphth) - Only in English -
|
|
A diphthong is a vowel that changes over time when pronounced. You
will have here to prolong the first
part of the diphthong and make it sound like a static vowel. Select a
portion of this static sound.
Full diphthong (full dipht.) - Only in
English -
|
|
Here, you will have to record the full diphthong, spoken quite briefly.
Be careful not to drop the volume or pitch down at the end of the
diphthong (imagine you have to say another word just after this one).
You must select the whole diphthong. Articulate well but do not prolong
the sound
too much, or the resulting voice file size will increase...
Stretchable consonants
|
|
These consonants can be stretched. (M,N,L,S,F...). Imitate the
sample, and as for the static vowels, select a portion in which
the volume stays more or less constant.
Plosive unvoiced consonants (T,P,K)
|
|
These consonants are preceded by a short period of "glottal stop," a
silent phase. Emphasize the consonant itself and make it sound louder
than it should be in normal speech. Then adjust the selection range so
that
it starts just after the glottal stop, and ends after the consonant and
its aspiration noise are finished.
Plosive voiced consonants (D,B,G)
|
|
These consonants are preceded by a short period of "obturation" (see
above). Emphasize the consonant itself and make it sound louder that it
should be in normal speech. Then adjust the selection range so that it
starts just after the glottal stop, and ends after the
consonant and its aspiration noise are finished. See the special note
for German users in the "Obturation" topic.
Aspiration (hhh)
|
|
This is the sound when the singer recovers his breath. Breathe in quite
quickly (less than 1 second) without any lip sound: open your mouth
before
starting recording, then breathe in as if you were surprised. Adjust
the selection range so that it includes the whole sound (with a brief
period of silence after the sound).
RealSinger
Factors to be considered when
recording for Real Singer
|
Noise factors
|
|
Environmental noise
|
|
If
a passing noise interferes with your recording, simply re-record it. If
you have companions, suggest that they go elsewhere, since their small
movements may escape your attention but still be heard in the
recording. Yes, your friend sitting behind you is giggling while you
are trying to record...
A.C. hum
|
|
Depending on your country, alternating current
(AC) hum has a frequency of 60Hz or 50Hz, with overtones throughout the
vocal range, particularly at 180Hz (150Hz). At right is the spectrum of
AC hum from a noisy setup. It is very important to reduce AC hum, since
it is difficult to remove this noise without distorting your voice.
|
|
If
you use a laptop computer, the simplest way to reduce AC hum is to use
battery power, and have no peripheral devices connected. If you do use
peripherals, the cables should be disconnected at the computer when
power is off, not left dangling from the computer.
When
a preamplifier (or tape deck) and a computer are connected, and when
both of them use AC power, the amount of hum depends on how the power
cords are plugged in. The loudest hum is produced when the
two devices are plugged into different wall sockets. If one device has
an AC auxiliary outlet, plug the second device into it, rather than to
the wall. Or, plug both devices into a single extension cord. If the
power plugs are not polarized (that is, if they can be inserted into
the outlet with prongs reversed), try reversing the prongs.
|
Some microphones will pick up a lot of AC hum
when you touch them. If that happens, mount the mike on an insulating
stand, instead of holding it. If you do not have a mike stand, try
taping the mike to a wooden stick, held vertical by taping it to the
back of a chair. Pay careful attention to this. Just because a
microphone can be held in the hand, does not mean that it should be
held. If you use a headset microphone, see if AC hum is reduced when
you remove the headset.
|
Be
sure that your microphone cable does not run near any power cords.
There may be power lines underneath your floor, so try moving the
microphone cable. The same applies to the cord between computer and
preamp or tape deck, if you are using one. It is especially important
to stay away from motor-driven devices, including ceiling fans.
Machine sounds
|
|
If
you see a noise spectrum like the one above, but the fundamental
frequency of your AC is not the first peak, then the source of noise is
probably a motor-driven appliance. Machine sounds are common.
You have learned to ignore your refrigerator, heating, ventilation,
computer fans, and ticking clocks. But if they are present, they will
be included in your voice recording. Consider turning off machines -
but don't forget to turn them back on again! If you have a lot of noise
distributed evenly across the spectrum, it may be caused by air rushing
through a ventilation system.
System noise
|
|
Some
noise is caused by the electrical properties of your system. If this
noise is small, Real Singer can analyze it and reduce its effect. But
if the system noise is too large, you will have to try a different
recording method.
If
your computer's sound card is poor, it will detect
electrical noise from the surrounding circuitry and include it in your
recording. This is especially true if you are using a microphone
connected directly to the computer's microphone input. If you have
eliminated all other possible noise sources and still have too much
unexplained noise, this may be the culprit. Try recording your voice to
a tape deck, or using a pre-amplifier, so that you can feed the preamp
line-out to your computer's sound card line-in, instead of to the
microphone jack. Remember that external recording equipment usually
requires a different kind of microphone than the kind used directly by
computers.
If
you are using a tape deck, it is better to use high-bias or metal tapes
and noise reduction. Do not use automatic gain control. Do not use a
microphone "built in" to the recorder.
Sound quality factors
|
|
Equalization
|
|
The
human voice contains important frequency components across a broad
range. The fundamental pitch of sung notes is below 500Hz (even lower
for the
male voice), with important overtones at higher frequencies. The range
around 2-6KHz contains frequencies that add color and definition to the
voice, especially during some consonants and transitions.
Be
sure that your microphone has a smooth frequency response across this
spectrum. If the mike is normally sensitive only to low frequencies,
but has an artificial boost for the highest frequencies, then your
recorded voice will sound too bright. Some computer mikes intended for
speech recognition (conversion of words to text) may have such an
artificial frequency response. But as long as the mike responds
adequately
across the vocal range, it is not necessary to have a level (flat)
frequency response, since Real Singer includes an equalizer.
Saturation and clipping
|
|
Saturation
and clipping occur when an input signal is too large. This can occur at
the microphone, or at any stage of signal processing.
If
your voice is too loud, the microphone will distort the sound, even if
the electrical output from the mike is within the acceptable range.
Computer microphones often have a low dynamic range, meaning that there
is not much difference between the softest sounds they can detect above
the noise, and the loudest sounds they can accept without distortion.
When recording to Real Singer, it is important to keep your voice at
uniform loudness. This is especially true if you are using a computer
microphone.
Professional
audio microphones have a much greater range of loudness that they can
accept without distortion. But the range of electrical signals produced
is also large. This kind of microphone is used with a preamplifier (or
tape deck, acting as preamp). Be sure to pay attention to the VU or
other signal amplitude meter. It is OK to briefly exceed a limit if the
sound is in an unimportant part of a word, far from the phoneme that
you are trying to validate.
|
Do not use automatic gain control (AGC) for
recording to Real Singer. The distortions introduced by AGC are likely
to be greater than the distortions removed. It is better to move away
from the microphone, or manually adjust volume controls. Portable tape
recorders, and office-style voice recorders, usually use AGC. Avoid
using these devices, if you can.
|
If
you are transferring a signal into your computer from a preamp or tape
deck, be sure to use the correct jacks. Never take a signal from a jack
intended to directly drive loudspeakers. The best connection is
line-out to line-in.
If
you are using an audio editor to apply digital filters to a
pre-recorded waveform, be sure that the filter does not clip your sound.
Special problems
|
|
Difficult sounds
|
|
Some consonants are difficult to record, because they
are soft and
create a lot of breath wind. In English, these are f, h, s, and th
(thin).
You will need to place your mouth close to the microphone, but not
allow the breath wind to touch it. It helps to feel the air stream
coming from your mouth when you make these sounds, to ensure that the
mike is correctly placed.
Some other consonants are difficult to record, because
they are abrupt. In English, these are b, d, hard g (go), k, and p.
These
sounds have a moment of high intensity that quickly tapers to a short
sound. If spoken too loudly, the intense part will saturate or clip. If
spoken too softly, the tapered part will not be detected. Or, if you
naturally speak these consonants softly, Real Singer may decide that
your voice is "too loud" based on the part of the recorded word leading
up to the consonant. Resist the temptation to speak these in an
un-natural manner, to "help" Real Singer find them. If you do that,
Real Singer will find an un-natural sound!
If
you are having difficulty producing a satisfactory recording of these
consonants, or if you would generally like to change what Real Singer
hears from you, then pre-record your voice and use an audio editor. You
can reduce the amplitude of an unnecessary part of a word that is "too
loud," so that a necessary, softer part can be accepted. But it is
usually not advisable to edit the volume in the portion of sound that
contains the desired phoneme, because that will interfere with
noise-removal processing.
Using an audio editor
|
|
An
audio editor is a program that will open an audio file, change its
contents, and export the result to a new audio file. One such program
is the free Audacity (Windows or Macintosh) available from
sourceforge.net. In addition to opening and exporting WAV files, it can
open and export Vorbis OGG files. These files can be used by Real
Singer in place of a live voice.
With
an audio editor, you can: (1) Import a lengthy recording or several
words, and slice it into individual words. (2) Adjust the volume or
equalization. (3) Inspect sounds for the presence of sudden noise
events. (4) Apply special effects (not recommended for Real Singer).
|
With an audio editor, you can help find sources
of noise by looking at noise amplitude and spectra. The most valuable
use is to inspect the recording waveforms for the presence of
saturation and clipping. For this reason, it is a good idea to pre-test
your method of recording, inspect its results with an audio editor, and
make any necessary changes to your setup. Then Real Singer will have
good
quality sound to use for your voice.
|
Saturation
occurs when an increase in sound power produces less than the
proportional increase in recorded signal power. Saturation is often
desirable; it is certainly better than clipping. But in Real Singer, it
is better to avoid saturation, because the recorded tone will
be used in soft and loud passages. If you look at sample recordings of
your voice with an audio editor, and see that the recorded amplitude
is always about the same during both loud and soft parts of your
speech,
then you may have saturation. (Or, you may be a master at keeping your
voice at an even level!) Try recording at lower volume, or move the
microphone slightly farther from your mouth. Be sure that automatic
gain control is not in use. Avoid saturation in, or near, any part of
the word that will be used for the phoneme.
At right are some images (at reduced size) from an
audio editor. The top image shows a waveform that has been properly
recorded. Even though Virtual Singer plays a sample word with very
uniform amplitude, the live human voice varies in amplitude. These
irregularities can be seen in the envelope of the waveform.
The second
image is the same sound, recorded with saturation. Notice how the
irregularities of the envelope have been smoothed. Examining the
spectra would show that certain frequencies are more prominent in the
the waveform with saturation than in the unsaturated wave.
The third image shows
clipping, in this case caused by too large an electrical signal at the
sound card input. Notice how the envelope has been flattened
(flattening may be symmetrical or asymmetrical).
The fourth image also
shows clipping, even though the recorded waveform has lower amplitude
than before. In this case, the clipping occurred at the microphone,
because the sound was too loud. The electrical signal was reduced by
the sound card volume control. However, once a wave is clipped, it
cannot be un-clipped.
|
|
|
|
At left is a composite image of two spectra, for
the same word recorded by two different microphones. Areas of concern
are marked
with an asterisk. One of the microphones (purple spectrum) shows
excessive response in the second overtone (third harmonic), which is
one characteristic of saturation. Also, that microphone shows excessive
response in the high frequency range - probably due to artificial
enhancement - which makes the sound bright and harsh. This microphone
was intended for computer speech recognition.
The other microphone was
a pre-amplified dynamic type, normally used for audio recording. It had
a more satisfactory sound quality (green spectrum).
|
RealSinger
Adjusting
phonemes
|
Once all the phonemes
have been recorded, you can play the sample tune.
Some phonemes
will almost certainly not be what you expected, and will need
adjustment.
How to find
a bad phoneme
|
|
- Double-click the
singer in the Virtual Singer palette
- Click "Edit voice"
- Select the "Advanced"
thumb index, and click "Edit fragments"
- Type in the word
that is mispronounced in the "Text" field, and click try.
- The list of phonemes
that constitutes this word is displayed. Locate the one that needs
adjustment
and select it in the list on the left.
Adjusting a
phoneme
|
|
Several problems can make a phoneme sound wrong.
If the phoneme timbre
(tone or sound) does not match the expected result, we recommend that
you record
it again, by selecting the phoneme in the list on the left, then
clicking Record.
If the problem
comes from the phoneme power (volume), i.e. the phoneme is
ttoo soft or too loud in the sample word, there is no need to record it
again. You can adjust the starting and ending power using the Vst
(volume
start) and VMa (volume maximum) sliders on the left of the phoneme
spectrum
display.
Other
adjustments can also be performed, but they require a deeper knowledge
of
the internal operation of RealSinger. Therefore, they are
reserved to experienced users:
Two sliders control the coarticulation time:
Dtd is the
transition duration from the previous phoneme
Dtf is the
transition duration to the next phoneme
RealSinger
Technical background
|
|
Note:
This page is only a brief overview of the methods
used by RealSinger to produce a voice.
It is not necessary to read this chapter to use RealSinger.
This chapter is indended to answer
technical questions some users might have about the internal
algorithms,
and is not needed to use the product. |
|
Introduction
|
|
To synthesize a realistic singing voice, the first idea that comes to
the mind of the programmer is to use a collection of recorded phonemes
to generate the voice.
Three problems quickly become apparent:
-
The algorithm used must be able to generate the phoneme at any pitch
(fundamental
frequency). Recording every phoneme at all possible pitches is not
feasible,
because it would lead to a long and complex recording process, as well
as
huge voice files.
-
The algorithm must be able to elongate, or stretch, the phoneme to any
duration.
-
The algorithm must be able to generate a smooth transition from one
phoneme to
another, in order to simulate the coarticulation phenomenon (the next
phoneme
starts to be heard before the current one is completely terminated).
A solution can be found for each of these problems in the published
computer literature.
Efficient algorithms
have been developed to solve problems 1 and 2. They process
the recorded sample's digital data directly, allowing the programmer to
change its frequency (pitch) as well as its duration.
These algorithms are used in most popular sound editors to change
the pitch and speed of a sound file independently. They are also used
successfully
in speech synthesis, because speech frequency (pitch) variations are
quite
small.
However, in the case of the sung voice, these algorithms cannot be
used,
because they are not efficient when the pitch shift is too large. The
result
is not "wrong" as such, but the voice is distorted, just as when
playing
a magnetic tape at too high a speed (chipmunk voice).
For problem 3, a common solution is to record not only
the individual phonemes of a language, but all possible combinations of
two or three
phonemes (diphonemes/triphonemes). This system stores the
coarticulation
effect and makes the synthesized voice more realistic. However, here
again,
the recording process is quite difficult and extensive, sometimes
requiring several hours of work for the
speaker or singer. The resulting voice file is often quite
large (several megabytes).
RealSinger uses original algorithms to solve all three
of these problems
at the same time, by manipulating
frequency spectra.
Some speech synthesizers have tried to use voice frequency spectra
to generate voice in the past.
However, this method proved to be difficult
to implement, because recreating a signal from a processed spectrum
using an inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) requires that the
"phase" values be reajusted properly. If they are not properly
adjusted, consecutive pieces of signal won't
join and an unwanted background noise will be heard.
Voice spectrum
|
|
In speech or song, the glottal source waveform (the sound produced by
vocal chords when excited by the air stream from the lungs) is a
combination
of harmonics (frequency multiples of the fundamental frequency f0).
On a power/frequency graph, this glottal source sound
looks like
a comb, with each tooth of the comb located at a frequency that is a
multiple
of the fundamental f0:
When the voice pitch increases, the fundamental
frequency f0 shifts to the right (higher
frequency), and the frequency offset between two consecutive harmonics
increases too, to remain equal to f0.
In passing through the vocal tract, some frequencies are enhanced by
cavity resonances, and others are softened. The result is that certain
harmonics are loud, and others are softer. This vocal tract spectrum
depends on the phoneme being said
or sung, and is more or less unchanged when frequency (pitch) increases
or decreases.
The convolution of these two spectra (glottal source and vocal tract)
gives the resulting spectrum, in which the listener can determine both
the phoneme (what is said) and the pitch (sung note).
RealSinger basics
|
|
The aim of RealSinger is, for each phoneme of a given language, to
apply
a deconvolution to the recorded signal in order to separate the glottal
source and vocal tract spectra. Then it stores only the vocal tract
spectrum,
and will apply a generated glottal source to this spectrum to simulate
the original recorded phoneme being sung at any pitch.
Learning process
|
|
-
The speaker is asked to pronounce a word for each phoneme of the chosen
language.
-
Each word is recorded as regular sound data.
-
Then, the phoneme is isolated within the word and the signal is cropped
to keep only this part.
-
An average frequency spectrum of the sound is computed.
-
This spectrum is deconvoluted to delete the glottal source influence,
and
keep only the vocal tract resonator frequency curve.
-
This pseudo-spectrum is stored (less than 100 floating-point values for
each phoneme).
-
For time-varying phonemes like plosives, several pseudo-spectra are
stored
to keep information about changes in the spectrum.
This algorithm enables RealSinger to store only a few values for each
phoneme, which
means very short voice files (less than 40 Kb once compressed).
Generating the voice
|
|
-
For each phoneme to be sung, the matching pseudo-spectrum is extracted.
In transitional sections between two phonemes, both pseudo-spectra are
distorted,
then merged together, to simulate the coarticulation process.
-
A synthetic glottal source is generated, at the required pitch. The
glottal
source spectrum can be easily modified to change the overall
voice
timbre (for equalization or for applying various vocoder effects).
-
This source is re-convoluted with the phoneme pseudo-spectrum.
-
The spectrum is then processed by a phase-free inverse transform to
generate regular sound data.
This algorithm simulates coarticulation effects. Therefore it is not
necessary
to record the whole set of diphonemes or triphonemes. Only pure
phonemes
are required.
|
Myriad HQ
|
Myriad HQ logo design
by Gaël Martin |
Myriad HQ is an additional module for our music
products. It brings an
enhanced audio quality, new option for digital
output, and high-quality
sounds, generated by external plug-ins (VSTi) or by
"MyrSynth-Guitar",
our pinched string instrument generator
Trial vs registered version
|
|
The Myriad HQ module can be used free of charge in
trial mode. All its
features are then functional, but the module
disables itself after some
time in the session.
To continue trying it, you just have to quit the
program then run it again.
If you are convinced by the tryout, you can then
purchase a license for
30 euros (or US$37). You'll receive a personal
registration code that unlocks the
Myriad HQ limitations.
To disable Myriad HQ use "Configuration>Myriad
HQ>Enabled"
Control Panel
|
|
To activate or deactivate each component of Myriad
HQ, open its palette in the "Windows" menu.
In this palette, a set of buttons will let you
switch each component on or off:
- The "General" button activate or deactivate all
the components at once
- "Digital high
definition": hi-quality output and export
- "High definition
post-processing": improve d score sound
post-processing
- "Multi-channel
output": to manage more than 2 loudspeakers
(5.1, 7.1, etc)
- "MyrSynth-Guitar
instruments": Sounds for guitars and other
pinched string instruments
- "External
instrument modules": use of VSTi plug-ins
|
Myriad HQ
Digital High-Definition
|
Myriad HQ logo design by Gaël Martin |
To store a sound digitally, the computer gets the value of air pressure
on the microphone membrane, thousands of times per seconds. This list of
values (samples) makes the digital sound, that can be stored, processed
by mathematical operations, or replayed by the reverse process.
Quality of a digital sound is therefore defined by two values:
- Its sample rate, which is the number of samples per second
- The sample "depth", in bits, which is the accuracy of each value, the number of different values each sample can take
The "Audio CD" quality is: 44100 Hz sample rate (44100 samples per second) in 16 bits, i.e. 2^16 = 65536 possible values.
Our products manage this quality without the Myriad HQ module.
With the Myriad HQ module, it's possible to use up to:
- 96000 Hz sample rate, more that the double, for a finer mesh, thus
better high-pitched sounds, a better sound dynamic, and a decrease of
noise ratio.
- 32 bits deep samples, 65000 times more accurate than an audio CD, to
avoid metallic tones (aliasing) and get a better accuracy in quite
sounds
These quality improvements can be applied to:
- The digital output, on which you listen to your score
- Uncompressed digital export (WAV) to process your audio data in another application
- Digital input from microphone or line in
- Digital tracks in your document, that can be mixed together of with regular music staves
Please be careful however, data in top quality are 4.35 times bigger than classic data
|
Myriad HQ
Multichannel output
|
Myriad HQ logo design by Gaël Martin |
Audio output channels represent the loudspeaker on which sound is played.
A single loudspeaker (one channel) is a mono output
Two loudspeakers (two channels) is a stereo output. The sound,
different on the right and on the left, enables the listener to locate
the sound position from right to left
More channels can make the sound surround the listener, or make enhance basses
In Myriad HQ, you can select up to 8 channels for the sound output.
This is set up through "Configuration > Digital output configuration"
In instrument settings, in addition to the stereo position, a
"fader" button appears, letting you select the instrument position on
the front/back axis.
Here are the diagrams for the most common channel configuration. Please
note that Myriad HQ goes even further, by enabling to define a custom
set of loudspeaker, thus a setup that doesn't appear in this list.
1 channel
1.0 : Mono
2 channels
2.0: Stereo
3 channels
2.1 : Stereo + subwoofer
3.0 : stereo
3.0 : Surround
4 channels
3.1 : Stereo+subwoofer
3.1 : Surround + subwoofer
4.0 : Quadriphonic
4.0 : Surround
5 channels
4.1 : Quadriphonic + subwoofer
4.1 : Surround + subwoofer
5.0 : "rear"
6 channels
5.1 : "rear" + subwoofer
5.1 : "side" + subwoofer
6.0 : "rear"
7 channels
6.1 : "rear" + subwoofer
6.1 : "side" + subwoofer
7.0
8 channels
7.1
|
Myriad HQ
Digital post-processing
|
Myriad HQ logo design by Gaël Martin |
Some digital effects can be applied to your score sound, just before its
data are sent to the loudspeakers, the headphone or exported as a
digital audio file.
These digital effects can be set up from "Score > Global digital effects", and are improved by the Myriad HD module.
Currently, a multi-band equalizer will let you finely adjust the
final sound output, by amplifying or dampening some frequency ranges.
|
Myriad HQ
Myrsynth - Guitar
|
Myriad HQ logo design by Gaël Martin |
What is it?
|
|
Myrsynth-Guitar is part of the Myriad HQ module. It's a physical synthesis of pinched string instruments.
Unlike a sound base, in which recordings of a real instrument
playing notes at different pitches are reassembled to play the score,
physical synthesis calculate the sound data depending on the instrument
physical parameters and the performer technique.
A digital equivalent of the physical instrument (body, strings) is built
in memory, then the virtual strings are pinched and the vibrations
transmitted to the miscellaneous elements through mathematic formulas.
The result of these calculations is then picked up by virtual
microphones, and the sound can be heard.
What instruments, what playing technique?
|
|
Myrsynth-Guitar can simulate most of the instruments with pinched single-strings (no double strings) : Guitar, bass,
luth, banjo, ukulele, etc, mounted with metal and/or nylon strings.
Most of the playing techniques are managed, including natural &
artificial harmonics, hammering, slap, slide & bend, muted notes,
etc
The whole range of flamenco "golpe" can also be played (hit on the instrument body with the thumb, fingers or palm)
Myrsynth-Guitar automatically computes the strumming direction,
and can slightly arpeggiate chords. It can also put stress on rythm
beat, simulate the sliding of fingers on strings, or let the string
continue sounding after the end of the written note, for an even more
stunning realism.
Instrument and play mode selection
|
|
In
the instrument selection box ("Staves > Edit related instrument"
menu option) the "MyrSynth virtual instrument" type can be
selected in the pop-up menu.
When selected, you then get two lists.
On the left, the list of available MyrSynth instruments. They are sorted by category, and by sub-category for guitars.
In real life, it would be several instruments on their stand, you can pick one to play.
The "Tuning" button under the list lets you choose another tuning for this instrument.
During playback, if some notes cannot be played (for example because out
of the instrument pitch range), they will play a "golpe" (body hit)
instead.
On the right, the play mode list. This will be the way this
instrument is played. You can select the plectrum, decide whether you
play softly or heavily, follow exactly what is written or play with more
emotion, etc.
In a general way, "clean" play modes follow the written score : note
duration and power, struck chords, no finger sliding noise. On the
opposite, "noisy" play modes" are more humanised, but less faithful to
the score
Automatic selection when importing and loading
|
|
The program can, when a score is imported or loaded, automatically
select the more appropriate MyrSynth instrument, when it exists.
This can be set up through "Options > Myriad HQ > MyrSynth setup
In the list on the left "standard" instruments that can be used in the score
Tick "Display all" to see them all, otherwise you'll only see those for
which the matching with MyrSynth has already been defined.
On the right, the Myrsynth instrument selector, as well as its play mode.
This match will be applied, and Myrsynth instruments will replace
"standard" ones, according to the selected option at the bottom of the
box:
Cette correspondance pourra ętre prise en compte, et des instruments
MyrSynth sélectionnés
"Imports" are files in a foreign format (MIDI, Karaoke, Finale, MusicXML...)
"Old files" are score files that have been saved with a version of Melody/Harmony prior to the first version of MyrSynth
Special case: forced matching of the output type
|
|
In the global setup, "Load" section, output kind of all instruments of a loaded file can be forced.
In
particular, the user can decide that all instruments of a loaded score
will automatically play to digital output, even if they were set as
using another kind of output (e.g. MIDI) by the author
What must be done, in this case, when an instrument in the loaded score uses a MyrSynth instrument?
Will it be kept as is by the program, or changed to a standard (sound base) instrument?
This depends on the settings in the MyrSynth setup box (see previous
chapter). If the automatic choice for Myrsynth has been selected for any
kind of file, then the MyrSynth instruments will be kept. Otherwise,
they will be changed by an instrument that uses a sound base.
Version
1.7.6
/
July-August 2023
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro 1.7.6d - August 3,
2023
Corrections
- Drawing of
some horizontal lines
- Key display on virtual keyboard.
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro 1.7.6c - July 19, 2023
Corrections
- Crash when
sending some emails (especially for requesting
a 64-bit license extension)
- MacOS: Selection color issue in editable
fields.
PDFtoMusic /
PDFtoMusic Pro 1.7.6 - July 12, 2023
New features
- Algorithm for merging accented characters
drawn in two parts.
- When exporting tracks, it is now possible to
process voice parts specifically in order to
create a separate file for each voice,
highlighting the main voice. This can be
achieved by either reducing the sound level of
other singers (while keeping the orchestration
unchanged) or by placing the main voice on the
right and all other voices on the left in the
stereo position.
This feature is especially useful for
choirmasters who can easily generate practice
tracks for their singers.
Improvements
- The mode for excluding oversized images from
processing has been extended to filled
rectangles.
- Improved handling of legato.
- Enhanced management of rests in chords.
- When displaying the key signature on a system
with two staves, the key signature now appears
on both staves.
- Separate track export is now available in
batch export, allowing the creation of a
customized set of tracks from a list of PDF
files.
- To avoid a series of dialog boxes, the digital
export format is no longer prompted every time
but can be selected via a button.
- Ability to define the default Unicode mode of
operation: new "Fonts" tab in the preferences.
Fixes
- Fixed an issue with launching on Mac OS 13.4
with M1 chip.
- Fixed an intrusive message when manipulating
the Myriad HQ palette.
- Fixed an issue where it was impossible to
disable Virtual Singer when the score was empty.
- Fixed an issue where music would automatically
play upon loading documents at application
launch.
- Fixed the positioning of the export
configuration dialog box, which was centered on
the log window instead of the foremost document.
- Fixed an issue where the default path for
saving or exporting was incorrect for all
applications.
- macOS: Fixed a crash when attempting to export
with no documents present
Version
1.7.5
/
August-September
2022
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro 1.7.5c - September 16,
2022
New
- New
font option to give full priority to Unicode
Improvements
- Windows:
management
of
hi-resolution
screens in
PDFtoMusic and PDFtoMusic Pro
Fixes
- Miscelleneous fixes in file selector
- Windows: app icon on desktop and in taskbar
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro 1.7.5 - August 24,
2022
New
- New file/folder selection box (still possible
to use system boxes).
- New "Enable ancient notation" option (Pro
version) in order, among
others, to allow accidentals above the staff.
Also enables to exclude rests outside the staff.
- Setting for seeking chord diagrams in expert
mode
- First version of figured bass management (Pro
version)
Improvements
- Limit in number of displayed erros on TrueType
fonts
- Displaying glyphs not found in red is now
optional
- Improvement in slurs tracking
- macOS: better management of application in
background when music is playing
- Adjustment of palette position on startup
- Deactivating "Correction > Dynamics" menu
option also removes crescendo/decrescendo
seeking
- Better finding of guitar chord diagram
- Management of a special case:
« Al coda » followed by the coda
symbol
- Better response of the virtual keyboard.
- Improvement in recognition of chord names
related to diagrams
Fixes
- Selection playing when several parts are
selected
- Text editing of an annotation broke the music
font
- Keys remaining pressed on virtual keyboard
- Windows: verifying that another instance
of the application is already running was made
after controlling or requesting the serial
number
- Note positionning quality evaluation:
separated notes could be considered in chord, or
on the opposite chords split to successive notes
- Removing all changes could crash
- Crash in mixer
- Changing font processing management type could
make the "Performance" menu disappear
- Font correction could lead to displayin an
empty score
- Management of maximal distance between the
note and its ornament
- Resetting calculation parameters
- Wrong management of some fonts (rare) could
lead to an incorrect rendering on screen, thus
recognition error
- A bit too enthusiastic recognition of
crescendo/decrescendo symbols on very tilted
lines
- Drum sets
Version
1.7.4
/
December
2021
Improvements
- Recognition of some slur symbols
- Better management of slurs drawn through
mirror or not
- Better display of recognition result for
mirrored slurs
Fixes
- Fixed
display of tie symbols in result preview
- Loop
when playing selection range didn't work
- Saving
of
the
loop
state
- Random
problem
when
starting
playback
- Removal
of
slurs
drawn
on
top
of each other
Version
1.7.3
/
August
5th,
2021
Improvements
- Can run in forced Ascii or Unicode mode
Fixes
- Fixed problem of symbols drawn as pictures on
retina screens
- Fixed refresh problem on the keyboard palette
- Fixed problem with Type 1C fonts
Version
1.7.2
/
January
2021
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro 1.7.2d - January 25th,
2021
Improvements
- Following
dashes
over
a
measure
edge
has
been improved
Fixes
-
Digital export applied the forced tempo to
the first staff only
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro 1.7.2c - January 11th,
2021
Fixes
- Problem of music performance
- Problem when playing tremolos
- Problem when printing : unwanted display of
selection area
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro 1.7.2 - January 5th,
2021
This version provides a complete access to the
Virtual Singer voices and MyrSynth instruments
settings
New
- Complete
settings
for
Virtual
Singer
voices
- Virtual Singer palette
- Virtual Singer settings are savec in MusicXML
files
- Palette for MyrSynth instruments settings
- Sound base path selection
- New option for splitting between left and
right hand
Improvements
- track export now manages tempo changes on all
staves
- Management of the multiband graphic equalizer
in sound output settings
- Scrolling in "scroll" mode
- Better management of beam complex drawing
Fixes
- Problem on RealSinger voices rendering
- Access to Gold base on Windows
- Keyboard palette
- Display of recognition results in scroll mode
- Possible crash when the % character was
present in a word
- Mismatch in the contextual menu "Correction"
of the batch export
Version
1.7.1
/
February
2020
PDFtoMusic /
PDFtoMusic Pro 1.7.1d - April 6th, 2020
Improvements
- Graphical interface libraries have been
updated
- Interface scale selection
PDFtoMusic /
PDFtoMusic Pro 1.7.1c - February 12th, 2020
Improvements
-
Better
management of diacritics in stave
names
Fixes
- Fixed infinite loop in recognition of some
(rare) files
-
Recognition of some Unicode
characters
-
macOS: Deactivation of Retina
mode
PDFtoMusic /
PDFtoMusic Pro 1.7.1 - February 3rd, 2020
New
-
macOs : system notification at
the end of batch processing
-
macOs : management of Retina
screens. Can be disabled in global settings,
"Screen" tab
-
Magnifier mode for visually
impaired ("Screen" tab)
Improvements
-
Management
of
complex
tempi,
e.g
when
reference
note
duration
is a dotted half note
-
Corrections are now applied
before the file is edited through an
external software
-
Management of lyrics line
containing only one syllable
- Management of zero-width lines. This is very rare and
has been only seen on two pictures on the
thousands we own
Fixes
- Better
management
of
batch
processing
when
the
application
is
hidden.
- Windows
:
problem
to
run
automatically
Melody/Harmony
Assistant
Version 1.7.0 / June 2019 - October 2019
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro
1.7.0j - October 15th 2019
Improvements
- New keyboard shortcuts
- Recognition of dots drawn with
lines is now related to "Authorise special
lines"
- macOS: many cosmetic
improvements
Fixes
- Performance
menu
items
were
not
responding
properly
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro
1.7.0i - August 8th 2019
Improvements
- Clicking the "drawer" (page
preview on the right of the window) brings the
window to front
Fixes
- SVG/Myrweb
export
displayed
some
horizontal
lines
(e.g.
beams)
in
white instead of black
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro
1.7.0h - July 31st 2019
Fixes
- Possible
crash
when
processing
file
without
interface
(PDFtoMusic
Pro
in command-line mode
or PDFtoMusic launched from
Harmony/Melody Assistant)
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro
1.7.0g - July 18th 2019
New
- "Time
slider" window, to quickly play from any
position in the score
Fixes
- Fixed
overflow in files containing many paths
- Connection
with
Harmony
for
PDF
processing
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro
1.7.0f - July 9th 2019
New
- New
"correction" option to eliminate too big
pictures
Fixes
- Font
viewing on the document in font correction
mode
- Virtual
Singer
didn't
sing
some
notes
well,
when
another
notes with a 0 velocity was
overlapping. This is used for creating notes
that are starting point of several slurs
- Windows:
fixed
installer
(in
particular
the
application
desktop
shortcut
icon)
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro
1.7.0d - June 21st 2019
Fixes
- Fixed
miscellaneous minor graphical problems
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro
1.7.0c - June 14th 2019
Fixes
- Problem
when
saving
default
access
paths,
that
could
lead
to a crash
PDFtoMusic / PDFtoMusic Pro
1.7.00 - June 12th 2019
New features
- First 64-bit version of PDFtoMusic and
PDFtoMusic PRO
- Retina/4K option for big size display.
- Interface theme selector, transparency.
- Dark mode
Improvements
- Improvement in symbol recognition database
- Display of symbols deleted by the user has
been improved
- Management of note dots drawn via very short
lines with rounded ends.
Fixes
- Area selection, when click and drag was made
from bottom to top and/or from right to left
- Deleted symbols calculation could be wrong on
PDF files containing EPS (without embedded font)
Version 1.6.5 / March 7, 2018
New features
- Inclusion and exclusion areas ("Correction"
menu)
- Now possible to defer document processing when
applying changes ("Edit" menu)
Improvements
- Implemented specific processing for PDF files
that have been generated from the MyrWeb print
option.
- New icons: reprocessing, areas, e-mail
- Linux: application window size and position
are saved between sessions
Fixes
- Fixed name buffer overflow in staves and
system correction mode
- Fixed "deadlock" problem on PDF files with
non-standard page size (icon placement)
- Fixed character size problem in type 3 fonts
(drawn using pictures)
- Fixed side-by-side page display
- Windows: Fixed potential crash source at
startup
Version 1.6.4 / February 1, 2018
Improvements
- Management of the "US-English" language
variation in song lyrics
- Improvement of grace notes recognition
- Adjustments
made
to
process
some
files
in
which
note
dots were removed by the dust
cleaner
Fixes
- Selection range playback was sometimes not
well managed the first time
- Playback position marker could show the wrong
measure
- When entering measure list for playback, the
bar shown on score wasn't always in sync with
the required measur
- Window choice in "Windows" menu didn't work
well in standard (non-pro) version
- Wrong items in "Windows" menu when the Kooplet
search window was open
- Linux: fixed crash at startup
- Fixed time signature recognition problem, that
could lead to a sudden speed up in playback
- Fixed inconsistency in note time positions (a
note to the right could be inserted before a
note to its left)
- Pro version: Fixed glitches in MusicXML
export, especially on 8va & 8vb clef
management
Version 1.6.3 / November 28, 2017
News
- MyrSynth instruments management, providing an
improved sound realism for plucked string
instruments when the Myriad HQ module is
registered.
In Pro version, Myriad HQ is fully-functional
without needing an additional license
- This version is the very first to be available
for Linux
- Spanish version of the GUI
Improvements
- Better duplicate characters deletion in type 3
fonts
- Management of Unicode characters in type 3.
- Improvement in ambitus management
- Improvement in maverick tempi management
- Digital output settings in batch export
- Improvement of selection range playback
- Default octave shift for Guitars and Basses
- OCR improvement for some text fonts
- Improvement of Basque language detection in
lyrics
Fixes and Changes
- "Enable rounded lines" becomes "Enable
special lines"
- Fixed crash when playing/exporting scores that
contains very small images
- Fixed confusion between ledger lines and
tenuto
- Fixed management of incomplete charset on
fonts using a wrong unicode encoding
Version 1.6.2 / March 8, 2017
The main new feature is the annotation system. It
enables a PDF file to be overlayed with text,
graphics, boxes or arrows.
These annotations can be animated, to appear or
disappear at a defined moment when music is playing.
Annotations can only be created and edited with
PDFtoMusic Pro.
PDFtoMusic (non-pro) will, however, display them.
News
- Annotations
- New option in correction menu to disable grace
notes processing
- New option in correction menu to process chord
names written in complex typography
- If expert settings have been changed, it is
shown in configuration menu
- Changes
in
general
tempo
now
affect
the
miscellaneous
exports
(MusicXML,
Myrweb,
etc)
Improvements
- User name and address can now be specified on
command line
- Windows: new memory management, that lets
cross the 1.4GB limit
- Improved playback for crescendo and
decrescendo symbols
- Improved playback of long melismas
- Calculation of the played bar array has been
optimised. It speeds up the end of document
calculation
- Management of part start symbols, which are
now easier to identify
- Improvement in some instruments detection
- On
Windows, and to a lesser extent on Mac,
score drawing has been speeded up. Display
and scrolling are faster
- On MacOS, possible to use CoreText instead of
ATSUI to display text. This can be set in global
setup, "Glyphs" tab
Fixes and changes
- The PDFtoMusic Pro command line (P2MP) no
longer enabled program registration
- Possible crash when resetting corrections and
score reload
- "Modified" state wa slost when reloading the
score automatically after a chsnge in
Corrections
- Fixed export of some text, that could add
extra rest at the end of the bar
- Possible crash when switching language
- Possible
crash
when
opening
the
box
for
forcing
played
bar
list
- Fixed
barline export problems (e.g. repeat end)
when the bar was split by a clef or key
change
Version 1.6.1 / January 12, 2017
New
- Full management of GOLD II sound base
instruments
- Possible to try instruments and human voices
- A progress bar show the status of batch
export, and this process can be easily stopped
- Default processing settings can be selected
directly from the interface
- Changed processing settings are shown in bold
in the menu
- Menu option to quickly get back to default
settings
Improvements
- More accurate playing position in Myrweb
format
- Better management of key changes on staves
that are not displayed on some systems
- Automatic picking of human voice in SATB
scores
- New management of left/right hand in virtual
keyboard. The part for each hand can be
selected, and the matching color changed
- Direct access to help from the palettes
- Better following of staves across systems,
based on their names
- Option in e-mail contact to attach the current
document
- Better management of grace chords
Fixes and Changes
- File extension in automatic export
- MIDI channels assignation
- Instrument changes loading
- "Allow brackets to make groups" option is now
saved
- Windows: Fixed path drawing colors (component
were inverted)
- Fixed antialiasing errors on graphical path
drawing
- Some grace notes could be attached to the
wrong note
- Some grace notes could be incorrectly
considered as plain notes
- Multiple grace notes could be processed in the
reverse order
- New storing algorithm for amenements in the
PDF file
- Lyrics management after measures split by a
clef change
Version 1.6.0 / January 2, 2017
This major version brings several technical
improvements in version PRO. For instance, viewable
and playable documents can be published on the
Internet in HTML format without needing any plug-in
to be installed in the browser.
PDFtoMusic can also convert PDF documents to SVG
format.
New features
- Myrweb export, enabling to publish stand-alone
documents with score view and audio. (PRO only)
- SVG Export (PRO only)
- Multi-pages SVG Export (PRO only)
- New display layout option: pages are displayed
side by side in pairs, instead of one below the
other
- New music display while playing: Lectern mode
(PRO only)
- New setting for ignoring corrections that have
been stored within PDF files
- New play option: semitone transposition
(PRO only)
- New palette: lyrics monitoring (PRO
only)
- New setting for activating lectern mode or
regular mode as default (PRO only)
- Metronome playback
- New correction options to ignore tempo changes
or dynamics
- New command to jump to the page that contains
a given bar, and show this bar on page.
- Title, Composer, Remarks are highlighted on
page, and can be manually selected.
- New option to enable group names
Improvements
- Complex tempi recognition
- Improvement of implied tuplets processing
- Bar number display now manages multi-rest bars
- Better spotting and processing of
crescendi/decrescendi.
- Title, Composer, Remarks now manages cover
sheets. MusicXML export of these items has
been improved.
- Multi-style text management has been impoved,
as well as stitching of text blocks.
- Improvement of numbered parts processing.
- Better staff following
- "N.C." chords recognition is managed
- Added new chord types : x2(no3) and xno3 that
match xSus2
- Management of 4, #4, b4 in chord names.
- Management of bb and ## as a single character
in chord names
- Better language recognition for Virtual Singer
- Management of local staves written with small
notes
- Management of dots on small notes.
- Small notes are now properly exported in
MusicXML.
- Management of partially shared lyrics
- Better management of composite accented
characters
- Recent files menu now displays the whole name
- Recognition improvement of some fonts
- Management of words written from right to left
Fixes and changes
- Fixed bar number display in scroll mode. Could
occur in parts where first staff was
hidden.
- Fixed scroll bar problem in scroll mode
- GOLD base wasn't well managed
- Automatic break symbols management (adding
repeat symbols when the number of lyrics line
doesn't match what is played) was broked.
- Icon on desktop (Windows)
- Management of available tool icons in standard
version and problem fix when PRO-specific icons
were placed on the toolbar.
- Semitone shift in instrument correction was
ignored for sung voices.
Version 1.5.1 / September 2015
New features and improvements
- New option in the "Correction" menu :
computing without ledger lines
- New languages for Virtual Singer (*):
Bulgarian, Catalan, Slavon, Czech, Dutch,
Esperanto, Basque, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian,
Macedonian, Portuguese, Romani, Romanian,
Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, Turkish et Vietnamese
- Improvement of voice management within staves
- Improvement in following parts over multiple
systems
- Recognition of chord names partially written
using a music font
- Improvement in finding and processing tempo
changes
- It's now possible to change a free text to an
ending symbol.
- Detailed information added in the calculation
progress bar
- Improvement in finding and processing Endings,
Segno, Coda etc.
- Clicking a part name in the mixer window shows
the page at which this part begins
Fixes and changes
- Fixed a problem of word splitting by a dash,
that made the syllable be sent to a random line
- MusicXML export now uses the standard language
nomenclature
(*) Most of these languages are still being
improved. We wish to thank
the users who actively help us to adjust them.
Version 1.5.0 / December 2014
New features and improvements
- Better management of chord targetting,
recognition and storage
- Measure selection in scroll mode
- Keyboard shortcuts to control music rendering
- Exported page range selection (PRO only)
- Signal tone at the end of document computation
(several possible tones)
- Measure number display in scroll mode
- Management of measure start repeat symbol
- New option to loop play selection range or the
whole piece
- When displaying the about box, search for an
updated version of the application
- Better management for shapenotes
- Management of Mensurstrich systems with dotted
lines
- MP3 export, including lyrics
- Ogg export
- Improvement of staff connection between pages
- Direct communication between Melody Assistant,
Harmony Assistant and PDFtoMusic
- crossed circle symbol recognition
- New selection areas
- Better management of tuplets on rests
- Better management of font glyphs out of
character map
- New option to ignore multiple rests
- Improvement in grouping brace fragments
- Better targetting of group names
- Possible to ignore or modify a time signature
change
- First German version
- First Dutch version
- New manageme nt of PDF with non-embedded fonts
- Dynamics are better assigned to their staff
- Management of tuplets with incomplete brackets
- Clean denial of PDF files that contains large
scanned pictures
- Finding and processing of rehearsal marks
- Better management of arpeggio symbols
- Management of staff names written vertically
- Recognition of circled digits (string number)
- Better determination of instrument related to
a staff in a group (bracket or brace)
- Better determination of instrument on organ
keyboard staves
Fixes and changes
- VirtualSinger voices could be silent when
playing a selection range located near the end
of the score
- Possible to change a font from "Music font" to
"Text with optical recognition"
- Possible to force a font to "Music font"
- Fixed possible confusion between bar numbers
and time signature with unknown bottom number
- Fixed possible confusion between bar numbers
and lyrics
- Fixed key signature change misplacement when
empty bars are present
- Fixed lyrics export in .kar
- Fixed management of cautionary key signature
- Fixed confusion between Capo (capodastro -
guitar clip) indicator and "Da Capo"
- Fixed MusicXML saving problem in case of
multiple brackets and braces
- Fixed MusicXML export of imposed measure array
- Fixed user break
- Fixed singer language display
- Fixed management of tremolo on stem
- Fixed management of broken slurs
- Fixed path assembly module
- Fixed preference file conflict between pro and
standard version
- Fixed "Save As" when saving under the original
name
- Some special characters in the embedded font
names could trouble the MusicXML export
- Windows: The document icon in the upper left
corner of the window could disappear
Version 1.4.2 / October 2013
News and Improvements
- In scroll mode, position in the score and
automatic scrolling have been implemented
- Tremolo recognition on single notes
- Improvement of scores made of a single-line
drum staves
Fixes and Changes
- Slurs on two notes not consecutive of same
pitch could be incorrectly considered as ties.
- Fixed some elementary drawings
- WIndows Vista/7/8: Possible crash when sending
an e-mail from the program
Version 1.4.2c (October 14th
2013 )
Improvements
- Document writing at the end of the recognition
process has been speeded up
Fixes
- Fixed
glyph management
- Fixed
editing of staff following
- Some
options of the File menu like "Open PDF file
w/ editor" remained active even when no
document was loaded. This could lead to a
crash
- Fixed
possible crash when resizing document window
- Fixed
dynamics position calculation
- Source
files
have
been
processed
by
a
code
analyzer.
Some
minor
non-conformities
have
been
found
and
fixed.
Version 1.4.1 / July 2013
News and Improvements
- PDF files can be printed directly from the
program
- PDF files can be opened with an external
editor
- Better versionning of the OCR database,
enabling to update more easily this base alone
- Dutch version of the GUI
Fixes and Changes
- Select an object behind an icon
- Beam detection
- Time signature detection
- Fixed crash when playing after getting a file
from a Kooplet text search
- Processing of staff lines drawn with
characters has been reactivated
- Windows: crash when processing a file that has
% characters in its name
Version 1.4.0 / April 2013
This version brings an enhanced stability, a better
symbol recognition, new computing options as well as
some user interface improvements. In particular,
it's now possible to group objects together and
apply changes to all of them at once.
Two new floating tools are included : mixer and
virtual keyboard.
The played measure list can now be forced.
News and
Improvements
- New floating window: Mixer
- New floating window: Virtual Keyboard
- Quick opening of the current document in the
score editor of your choice.
- Page change on Pg Up & Pg Down keyboard
keys
- Specific processing of thin beams
("Correction" menu)
- Specific processing of note stems drawn using
curves ("Correction" menu)
- Better management of slurs across end of line
- Lyrics language displayed through a small flag
- Improvement of language automatic recognition
- Improvement in text spacing recognition
- Optional display of file complete path in the
window title
- New setting for playing the score
automatically after processing
- Independant key signature change on staves
- Corrections are applied to all selected
objects of the same type
- Now possible to select objects through
discontinuous selection, exclusion of a
selection area, selection of one or several
staves
- Edit menu: delete changes on selected objects
- Edit menu: select all, deselect all
- Improvement of Da Capo management and better
export
- Management of 7-shapes Fasola notation
- Improvement in shape note recognition
- Improvement of title, composer and remarks
recognition
- Improvement in speed for module: staff
following from one system to the next
- Improvement in speed for module: music symbols
optical recognition
- Improvement in ottava symbols processing
- Management of fontless documents like the PDF
files generated by iWriteMusic
- Better processing of information written
outside the staff area
- Virtual Singer voices (SATB) are better
determined and set
- Better processing of staff group name
- A new options enables to display measure
numbers and to spot measures that are never
played (it's generally due to a mistake in break
symbols)
- Now possible to force the list of measures to
play
- When compressed MusicXML format (.mxl) is
used, pictures of the document are now managed
in a standard way, and therefore imported by
programs that can process such embedded pictures
(PDFtoMusic Pro only)
- Miscellaneous PDF-specific graphic settings
are now calculated: stem line width, staff line
width, grace note size, etc. These settings are
exported in MusicXML (PDFtoMusic Pro only)
- Shape-note notation management module has been
completely rewritten
- Better management of incomplete measures
(anacrusis, upbeats) before or after repeat
start and end barlines.
- Management of staves with different time
signatures
- Management of implied tuplets through rhythmic
pattern recognition
- Improvement of chord diagrams recognition
- Improvement of lyrics and note association
- New algorithm for grace note tracking and
processing
- Better management of double-sharp symbols
- Recognition of a new ornament : staccatissimo.
- Improvement of C (Tenor) clef spotting
- Improvement of distinction between key
signature and note accidentals.
- Management of dotted notes with double stem
- Better processing of stemless notes
- Better spotting of dotted barlines
- Management of tempo mark made of several words
- Better management of arpeggio symbols
- Better recognition of lyrics language
- In global setup, default corrections that will
be applied when a PDF file is loaded can be
selected
- Better management of numbered parts (endings)
at the beginning of a line
- On documents with several lyric lines, when
break symbols are missing or wrong, break
symbols can be automatically created to match
the number of repeats.
- New option in the export to create a separate
file by part (PDFtoMusic Pro only)
Fixes and Changes
- Relation between file types and opening
application
- Management of TrueType CID type 2 Fonts
- Fixed crash on corrupted bitmap pictures
- Fixed crash when a long line of text is
considered as the lyrics syllable related to a
note
- Fixed icon positions when settings are reset
to default values
- Chord line management when conflicting with
bar numbers
- Fixed problem when saving instruments
- Online search for free PDF score files using
Kooplet has been improved, and the quantity of
indexed files drastically increased.
- Some combinations of break symbols and
numbered parts (endings) could result in an
infinite play.
- Fixed a problem in shared lyrics recognition.
Version 1.3.1 / May 2012
Improvements
- Better beam handling
- PDF files are now managed up to version 1.7
- Better ledger lines management
- Management of copy/paste protected PDF files
- New version auto detect
- Better broken slurs management
- Better 8va and 8vb management
Fixes
- Recent files menu
- User's toolbar
- Mensurstrich notation
- Dynamics vertical position on one line staves
Version 1.3.1d (May 15, 2012
)
Improvements
- Title, Composer, Remarks are extracted from
the PDF and exported
Fixes
- Better management of repeat start/end
recognized as piece start/end
Version 1.3.1c (April 19,
2012 )
Fixes
- Possible crash when playing a score that
contains lyrics written in an unknown language
- Windows:
Fixed
problem
in
the
memory
management
library
of
the PDFtoMusic non-pro version,
that could prevent processing of long scores
Version 1.3.0 / March 2011
New
- The Kooplet music search engine is included,
to search the Internet for PDF scores
- Possible to deactivate the chord name search
("Correction" menu)
Improvements
- Position of the play bar in multi-rest bars
Fixes
- Rest display
- Marcato Staccato ornament display
- Tuplet rests in MusicXML export
- Rests that fill a bar in MusicXML export
- Rests vertical position
Version 1.3.0c (March 17,
2011 )
- Repeat barlines between clef and time
signature weren't processed.
- Fixed toolbar update problem when setting up
the icons to display
- Fixed
crash on some files, Windows version
Version 1.3.0d (March 24,
2011 )
- Better management of slurs/ties drawn astride
a line break
- Some
chords were incorrectly played arpeggiated
Version 1.2.1 / April-May 2010
New
- Management of forced bar numbers
- Management of incomplete time signatures
- PDFtoMusic Pro: Command-line access (without
GUI)
- PDFtoMusic Pro: Batch processing: Messages can
be saved in a log file
- PDFtoMusic Pro: Expert mode: Maximum grace
note size setting
Improvements
- General improvement of musical or alphabetical
characters
- Better management of double barlines
- Improvement of numbered endings management
Fixes
- Page number in the drawer
- Dots localisation problem
- On some files, accidentals and grace notes
recognition
- MusicXML export: "<" character in lyrics
- Space character management
Version 1.2.1c and 1.2.1d (
May 4th - 6th 2010 )
- Improvement of music export (any format)
- Improvement in the way melismas are performed
by Virtual Singer
- Improvement of the arpeggio symbol management
- PDFtoMusic
Pro:
MusicXML
export:
stem
sizes
of
secondary
staves
of a group (e.g. piano bass
staff) weren't properly saved
- Windows:
Packed
MusicXML
(.mxl)
didn't
work
- Windows
Vista/7:
once
the
program
was
installed,
the
system
displayed an alert box saying that
the install might not be completed properly
- Windows
Vista/7:
The
appearance
of
dialog
boxes
could
not
be
as
expected
Version 1.2 / April 2009
New
- The toolbar can now be customized
- A folder of sample PDF files is now provided
- It is now possible to exclude break symbols
(segno, coda...) from the processing
Improvements
- Better export of grace notes (appoggiaturas)
in MusicXML.
- Better recognition and export of tremolos.
- Better management of repeat start and end
symbols
- Better management of drum staves, especially
on documents that only include such staves.
- .myr export now manages metronome
- Verse number in lyrics are now better managed.
- Better recognition for half notes
- Crossed grace notes are now located and
exported
- Better management of whole bar rests
- All actions available from menus can be
activated through an icon, and vice versa
Corrections
- Fixed performance of some kind of drum staves
- Fixed a small problem of file compatibility
between PDFtoMusic and Melody Player
- Fixed problem in beam recognition
- Crash on embedded Adobe Type 1 fonts with
composite diacritics.
Version 1.1 / September 8, 2008
New
- Packed MusicXML format (.mxl) is now managed
- Correction Menu : item to allow bracket to
create groups
- Correction Menu : item to ignore the clefs
vertical offset
- Management of implied tuplets
- Now possible to export in MusicXML 2.0 format
(global setup)
Improvements
- Better management of drum staves
- Opening a PDF file from the desktop doesn't
load the last documents
- Shift + mousewheel changes display scale
Fixes
- Confusion between tuplets and part start
- Chord diagrams management
- Confusion on drum staves
- Memory crash when deleting a change made to
the document
Version 1.0.4 / April 24th, 2007
New
- A correction can now be applied to a group of
symbols.
Right-click to define a selection area. Symbols
in this area appear as selected. Right-click on
any symbol in this selection area and select a
correction to apply: it will be applied to all
the symbols of the same kind in the selection
area.
Improvements
- Better memory management for page graphic
cache. Enables to manage bigger PDF files.
Fixes
- Seeking of the staff related to chord diagrams
Version 1.0.3 / April 3rd, 2007
Improvements
- Optimization of processing time
- Better management for chord name written on
shifted lines.
- Better management of grace notes
- Accented characters made of two parts
- Recognition of guitar chord diagrams drawn
with an emty grid character and a set of dots
- Recognition of some key changes
- Parenthesis around an accidental or a
notehead, when drawn with a text font
- Font OCR database updated.
- Macintosh: Multi-screen management
Fixes
- Recognition and export of the Aiken FaSoLa
notation
- Management of Adobe Type 1 fonts
- Applying a change on a document with a guitar
chord diagram
- Recognition of horizontal beams, when
overlapping a staff line
- Problem when a chord name was "Re"
- PDFtoMusic Pro: empty pictures are no more
exported in MusicXML
- MacTel: keyboard management
Version 1.0.2 / February 21st, 2007
Improvements
- Possible to change note duration AND add or
subtract a dot.
- Crossed grace notes management
- New keyboard shortcuts for display scale, 200%
scale
- Dynamics merging ensure that the result is
logical, for instance to avoid merging "mf" and
"sfz"
- New full screen and drawer management
- Font OCR database updated.
- PDFtoMusic Pro: New setting for the expert
mode: maximum beam thickness.
Fixes
- Tenuti recognition
- Ties within slurs
- Breve rest recognition
- Tempi display, edit and export
- Beamed notes with double stems
- Stem direction in chords
- Framed text could interfere with part numbers
Version 1.0.1 / February 8th, 2007
Improvements
- When defining a new kind of tuplet, it's added
to the tuplet value list.
- .myr files are now packed.
- "How to create PDF files with Mac OS 9"
chapter added to the manual.
- "How to create PDF files with Linux" chapter
added to the manual.
- Improvement in bar number seeking.
- Time signature detection has been improved.
- Improvement of paragraph recognition for free
text objects.
- Font OCR database updated.
- .myr export: default instruments for the
metronome are automatically created.
- PDFtoMusic Pro: After changing expert mode
settings, possible to compute all the open
documents again.
- PDFtoMusic Pro: In batch export, it's now
possible to define the amendments to computation
settings that will be applied to each and every
processed file.
- PDFtoMusic Pro: When editing expert settings,
when at least one item has been changed from the
reference value, the matching topic name is
highlighted in the list, and the offset from the
current value to the reference is also
displayed.
Fixes
- Miscellaneous problems in general settings.
- Problem that could occur when trying to edit
or play a non-vector document (scanned page or
not a music score)
- Infinite loop when selecting a user tuplet
- Exported page selection in other formats than
MusicXML
- Double barlines at end of bar could be not
well recognized.
- File kind detection according to its extension
when exporting
- Chord names and text related to the staff
could be not exported in .myr format
- Output device related to the instrument when
exporting in .myr format
- Alert about bar numbering when applying
correction on systems
- Windows: files with accented characters in
their name are now properly managed.
- Windows : default value of the selector when
selecting a folder.
- PDFtoMusic Pro: dynamic size when exporting in
MusicXML format
- PDFtoMusic Pro: "slash notation" export in
MusicXML format
Version 1.0.0 / February 1st, 2007
Very first public version.
Non processed elements
|
|
- Different time signature at the same time position
Unregistered version
|
|
The unregistered version of PDFtoMusic will only
play the first page of
a document, and can export only one page at a time.
Explanatory text appears on each exported page
processed with the demo
version.
Frequently Asked Questions
|
Here are some frequently asked questions, along with
their answers:
PDFtoMusic displays a score
but says that the
document
doesn't include any exploitable music data. Why?
Some PDF files embed only a single picture for the
whole score, instead of a collection of simple
graphic objects.
This kind of PDF file has probably been generated
from a scanned paper
sheet. PDFtoMusic can't extract and process
elementary graphical items
in such cases, and reports that such a document
cannot be processed.
How to know whether a PDF
file can be processed
by
PDFtoMusic?
The simplest way is to ask PDFtoMusic to load it. It
will then tell you.
Otherwise, open it with Acrobat Reader (or
equivalent) and do "Select
All". If the PDF file contains exploitable data, the
selection range
will be fragmented. If the PDF file contains only a
scanned picture
that
can't be processed either the selection range will
be empty, or the
whole score will be selected as a single block.
Why are
certain characters specific to a language not
recognized?
You must verify that the unicode information is
correct.
Open the PDF with Adobe Acrobat Reader or
equivalent.
Select the relevant text, copy.
Paste in a text editor.
If the characters are incorrects, the unicode data
in this PDF file is not valid.
A password is asked when I
load or export the
PDF, why ?
The author of the PDF file had protected his work,
contact him to got the password.
Through the selector you can
browse your storage space and select files to be
loaded or saved.
It helps you organising your documents better,
thus keeping them safer.
Files are documents you can open, modify
and save.
At the end of their name, a few characters
provide their type. They are called the
extension
Files are stored in
folders.
A folder can contain other folders, and so on.
This builds a
tree.
At any time you are viewing a precise position
in the tree: it's the
current path.
The selector contains three major areas as well
as some smaller, additional ones
From left to right we have:
- the shortcut list
- the list of files and folder stores in the
current path
- A preview of the selected file in the file
list
Can also be found:
- current path display
- up one level
- history browsing
- search field
- name input
- filters on file types
Area:
shortcut list
|
|
From the shortcut list you quickly access special
locations in your storage space
It is displayed as a name or icon list.
Display settings can be changed from the upper
button.
You can move in the list through the scroll bar and
change its size with the handle.
It is divided in four sections, each section can be
opened or closed.
- Bookmarks: you can add items in this
section by drag & drop of folders or files,
from the shortcut list or the file list
To delete an item, drag it outside the box.
To erase the whole section, right-click its
title.
- Recent: it's the list of the last used
locations.
To erase this section, right-click its title.
- Locations: it's a list of
predefined locations in your storage space:
Desktop, Documents, Settings, etc. Display
settings can be changed from the upper button.
- Disks: it's the list of storage units,
removable or not, currently available. If the
unit is removable, an icon enables to
eject/unmount it.
Area:
files
and folders list
|
|
This is the
most important section: it shows the file and folder
that are present in the current path
They can be displayed as icons or list. This can be
selected from the upper button. Items can be sorted
by date, size, name, etc. in ascending or descending
order.
Clicking an item selects int and displays its
preview in a dedicated area.
Clicking a column title changes the sorting , a
second click changes the sorting order.
A long click on a column title enables to move the
column.
By right-clicking an item, you can :
- change its name: you then enter the new name
of the file or folder
- duplicate it: a copy will be made in the same
folder
- move to trash bin: the file is not
definitively erased, it will be when you empty
the trash bin
- show in system: the item is shown in the
standard window of your system file browser
- add to shortcuts: the item is added to the
list on the left. If it is a folder, it will be
opened, if it is a file, the current path will
be changed and the file shown in the selector
list
- detailed view: a full-screen preview is shown
(see the subchapter about this topic)
Here is a list of usable keyboard keys:
Note : Cmd means the "Command" key on macOS and the
Ctrl key on Windows and Linux
Esc |
Cancel the selection and
close the selector
|
Enter/Return in search mode
|
Start search
|
Enter/Return |
Validate the selection and
close the selector
|
Cmd +
|
Increase element size
|
Cmd - |
Decrease element size |
Cmd 0 |
Back to factory settings
|
Cmd up arrow
|
Up one level in tree |
Cmd A
|
Select all
|
Cmd T |
Sort by title
|
Cmd D |
Sort by date |
Cmd P
|
Sort by path (search results) |
Cmd H
|
Sort by information |
Cmd K
|
Sort by type
|
Cmd S
|
Sort by size |
Cmd I
|
Invert sorting order
|
Cmd M
|
Toggle display mode
|
Cmd N
|
New folder
|
Cmd P
|
Detailed view
|
Cmd left arrow
|
Move to start
|
Cmd right arrow
|
Move to end |
Cmd backspace |
Move item to trash bin
|
Up or left arrow
|
Move to previous item
|
down or right arrow
|
Move to next item
|
Enter
|
Enter the folder
|
S |
Run slideshow
|
0,1,2,3 etc |
Change screen
|
Spacebar (on a PDF)
|
Next page (macOS only)
|
Spacebar (on a .myr)
|
Start/stop music
|
Note : On macOS you can change the current
path by dragging & dropping a folder to the
selector
Area:
preview
|
|
It shows a
preview of the select file or folder in the list in
the center.
Area size can be changed with a handle.
Some kind of files are displayed in a special way:
In Harmony/Melody Assistant, music foles are viewed
and played
On macOS PDF files can be viewed, even if they
contain multiple pages
Area:
current path display
|
|
Le chemin
courant s’affiche de maničre détaillée. Un click sur
un niveau de l’arborescence se positionne ŕ se
niveau. Les différents sous-dossiers sont également
accessibles via le menu contextuel.
Un click long puis déplacement sur les favoris
ajoute ce chemin aux favoris.
Area:
search
|
|
Made of a small magnifying glass and a text field.
Enter the text to seach for in file names then click
the magnifier to start the search.
Note: on macOS you can chose whether you want to
serach using SpotLight or not. With SpotLight,
search is made throughout all your disks, the
standard search only processes the current path.
Area:
up one level
|
|
Goes up one level in the tree
Area:
history
|
|
When you change
the current path, it is memorised. From the history,
you can go back.
N.B.: This is different from going up one level
Area:
name input
|
|
When saving a
file you will enter its name here.
Area:
filters
|
|
Only files whose extension matches the filter can be
selected
Mode:
detailed view
|
|
It shows a full-screen preview of the file or folder
currently selected in the list in the middle
Click the preview to move it, right-click to zoom in
on the area.
Here is the list of usable keyboard shortcuts:
Esc |
Exit this mode
|
Cmd +
|
Increase scale
|
Cmd - |
Decrease scale |
Cmd 0 |
Back to scale one and
recenter |
Cmd up arrow
|
Up one level in tree |
Cmd T |
Sort by title
|
Cmd D |
Sort by date |
Cmd P
|
Sort by path (search results) |
Cmd H
|
Sort by information |
Cmd K
|
Sort by type
|
Cmd S
|
Sort by size |
Cmd I
|
Invert sorting order
|
Cmd left arrow
|
Move to start
|
Cmd right arrow
|
Move to end |
Cmd backspace |
Move item to trash bin
|
Up or left arrow
|
Move to previous item
|
down or right arrow
|
Move to next item
|
Enter
|
Enter the folder
|
S |
Run slideshow
|
0,1,2,3 etc |
Change screen
|
Spacebar (on a PDF)
|
Next page (macOS only)
|
Spacebar (on a .myr)
|
Start/stop music
|
MODE:
SELECT FILE FOR LOADING
|
|
You are going to select the file(s) to be loaded.
Only the files that match the filter can be
selected. You can change the filter by clicking the
filter contextual menu area.
MODE:
SELECT FILE FOR SAVING
|
|
You are going to select a current path and a file
name
MODE:
SELECT FOLDER
|
|
Only folders are displayed in this mode. You can
define a complete path that will be used by the
program
File formats
Your user folder
Keyboard shortcuts
Useful links
File formats
|
|
PDFtoMusic manages several file formats. Here is an
overview of each of
them.
Adobe PDF format (.pdf)
This format has been designed by Adobe, PDF standing
for "Portable
Document Format". It eases the exchange and
distribution of any
document. It can store any kind of graphical
objects, from text to
pictures.
It's the groundwork of PDFtoMusic.
PDFtoMusic reads and processes this kind of
document, as long as its data contain vector
graphics.
MusicXML format (.xml)
Designed by Recordare,
this
format is about to become the
exchange file format for music scores. Based on XML,
a text descriptive
format, it is now managed by an increasing number of
music programs.
In order to open PDFtoMusic to as many people as
possible, it has been
naturally chosen as the groundwork format for the
Pro version of
PDFtoMusic.
PDFtoMusic Pro writes this kind of document.
This format is not managed by PDFtoMusic, in its
"non Pro" version.
You can use Melody
Player to view and listen to list of files of
this kind.
MusicXML compressed format (.mxl)
It is a packed version of the MusicXML format. In
fact, this kind of
file can be obtained by compressing a MusicXML file
as a Zip, then renaming
the result file
from .zip to .mxl
In the same way, the original MusicXML file can be
extracted from the
.mxl by renaming it to .zip then unpacking it with
any utility that
supports this format (for instance, the original
unzip program)
.
Because MusicXML is a descriptive text of the score,
these files can be
quite large. In order to save bandwidth, either when
such files are
sent by e-mail or put on a Website, using a .mxl can
be useful.
PDFtoMusic Pro writes this kind of document.
This format is not managed by PDFtoMusic, in its
"non Pro" version.
You can use Melody
Player to view and listen to list of files of
this kind.
Myr format (.myr)
It's a Myriad proprietary format, managed by Melody
Assistant and Harmony
Assistant.
Music-related information is stored as musical
objects.
PDFtoMusic writes this kind of document.
You can use Melody
Player to view and listen to list of files of
this kind.
MyrWeb format (.myrweb.html)
With this format, anybody can view and hear your
score, without having to install anything on their
computer or tablet beforehand.
A MyrWeb
file can be sent by e-mail, or included directly in
a Website without needing any special technical
skill.
The dead simple score sharing format par
excellence.
PDFtoMusic Pro writes this kind of document.
This format is not managed by PDFtoMusic, in its
"non Pro" version.
Mid format (.mid)
This format, based on the MIDI exchange standard
between electronic
music devices (keyboards, synthesizers, expanders,
etc) contains a
description of the notes that constitute the music
pieces, as well as
basic information about the score. However, details
about the piece
graphical appearance, its page layout, note
appearance or ornaments are
not stored. Albeit very incomplete, and until the
use of MusicXML
broadens, it remains the standard exchange format
for almost all music
programs.
PDFtoMusic writes this kind of document.
You can use Melody
Player to view and listen to list of files of
this kind.
Kar format (.kar)
It's actually a mid format, to which additional
commands have been
added in order to store lyrics related to a staff.
Originally, this
format was designed to store Karaoke scores (hence
its name).
PDFtoMusic writes this kind of document.
You can use Melody
Player to view and listen to list of files of
this kind.
Wav format (.wav)
It's a binary audio format. It contains stereo
digital audio data. This
format is lossless, which means that it can be
loaded, changed and
saved as many times as needed, without any loss in
quality (contrary
to MP3 or OGG, for instance).
Initially designed for PC, it is now
managed by almost any
sound editor or player, or CD burning software.
When PDFtoMusic generates this kind of file, it uses
the digital sound
database that has been installed on your computer. A
better quality
will be obtained when using the GOLD
base.
PDFtoMusic writes this kind of document.
AIFF format (.aiff)
It's a binary audio format. It contains stereo
digital audio data. This
format is lossless, which means that it can be
loaded, changed and
saved as many times as needed, without any loss in
quality (contrary
to MP3 or OGG, for instance).
Initially designed for Macintosh, it is
now managed by almost
any sound editor or player, or CD burning software.
When PDFtoMusic generates this kind of file, it uses
the digital sound
database that has been installed on your computer. A
better quality
will be obtained when using the GOLD
base.
PDFtoMusic writes this kind of document.
Mpeg format (.mp3)
It's a binary audio format that contains stereo
digital audio data. This
format is compressed lossless, which means that it
is shorter than an uncompressed format (wav,aiff)
but can suffer from a slight loss of quality.
When PDFtoMusic generates this kind of file,
it uses the digital sound
database that has been installed on your computer. A
better quality
will be obtained when using the GOLD
base.
PDFtoMusic writes this kind of document.
Vorbis Ogg format (.ogg)
It's a binary audio format that contains stereo
digital audio data. This
format is compressed lossless, which means that it
is shorter than an uncompressed format (wav,aiff)
but can suffer from a slight loss of quality.
When PDFtoMusic generates this kind of file,
it uses the digital sound
database that has been installed on your computer. A
better quality
will be obtained when using the GOLD
base.
PDFtoMusic writes this kind of document.
BMP format (.bmp)
It's a binary picture format. Data is not stored as
graphical object,
but as pixels.
It is managed by almost all the graphic editors.
PDFtoMusic writes this kind of document.
Svg format (.svg)
It's a vector image format. It contains graphical
objects in scalable form, enabling to zoom
infinitely without loss of precision. These files
can be included very easily in Web pages, or be
viewed in a Web browser.
PDFtoMusic Pro writes this kind of document.
This format is not managed by PDFtoMusic, in its
"non Pro" version.
Multi-page svg format (.svg)
It's an SVG export of all the score pages at once,
side by side. Mainly designed to be displayed in a
Web page, this format will let Webmasters easily
display a mullti-page score in a web page area (div)
PDFtoMusic Pro writes this kind of document.
This format is not managed by PDFtoMusic, in its
"non Pro" version.
Structure
of your user
folder
|
|
The user folder contains files that have been
created by PDFtoMusic. It
is highly recommended to perform backup copies of
this folder at
regular intervals.
This folder is located in your user document folder,
in the "Myriad
Documents/PDFtoMusic" subfolder.
The subfolders are:
"Correction" : If you asked for the corrections not
to be stored in the
PDF document itself, the changes you applied to the
documents will be
stored here. There will be one correction file for
each edited PDF.
"Export": When the result from an imported PDF file
is automatically
exported, it is stored by default in this folder.
You can change this
location from the general preferences, "Export"
section.
"OCRCorrection": When you amend the result of the
character optical
recognition, databases are created in this subfolder
Keyboard
shortcuts
|
|
Beyond keyboard shortcuts for menu options, some
keyboard keys trigger
actions:
Spacebar: starts and stops music playback
Down arrow: switches to next page
Up arrow: switches to previous page
Esc: cancels processing of the current file
Useful links
|
|
Here is a list of Web sites where you can download
music PDF files:
http://dirk.meineke.free.fr
http://icking-music-archive.org
http://www.cpdl.org
http://
www.solovoces.com
http://
www.sheetmusicnotes.com
http://
www.score-on-line.com
http://
www.oldmusicproject.com
http://
www.free-scores.org
http://
www.eythorsson.com
http://
www.guitarpixel.com
http://
www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~ef/music/
http://
www.mutopiaproject.org
http://
www.jazzbank.com
http://
www.evatoller.pp.se
http://
www.kantoreiarchiv.de
If you encounter specific issues that you can't
solve, of if you need
something precise that can't be fulfilled by
PDFtoMusic, you can
contact
us, we'll do our best to help you.
Before all:
|
|
Ensure that you actually own the most
recent
version of the program (see our website).
If not, download the new version then check
whether your problem still
occurs.
How to contact us?
|
|
Either :
- Send an e-mail to this address "pdftomusic@myriad-online.com",
describing
your hardware and software configuration, as
well as the
problem you encounter, as precisely as possible.
You can also send an e-mail directly from the
application, through the "Internet"
sub-menu. Please don't hesitate to add
a file, as short as possible, that enables us to
reproduce the problem
- Send a regular post mail to Myriad, 26
rue
Michel de Montaigne,
F-31200 Toulouse, France. However, if you have
access to the Internet,
e-mail is recommended.
`
Non-profit distribution ofthe unregistered version of
PDFtoMusic is permitted without prior written notice, provided that the
software is not modified in any way, and is distributed in its entirety
(this includes the application, data files, and all accompanying
documentation).
For-profit distribution of the above software requires a prior written
agreement from the authors, by post, fax or e-mail.
Complete or registered
version
|
|
By
purchasing
a complete version of
PDFtoMusic, the user accepts the present
software license.
The complete version of
PDFtoMusic is assigned to its owner,
becoming personal and confidential as soon as the personal code that
have been sent to the user after their purchase has been entered in the
software. Neither the registered copy of the software, nor the personal
registration number can be distributed in any form.
This license is not limited in time, and remains valid for all new
versions of the same product.
It is valid for
one user only.
If you need to share a registered version of
PDFtoMusic among several users,
please contact us to get a site license.
The user is fully responsible for the non-distribution of his personal
registration number and his registered copy of the software.
Disclaimer
|
|
In no event will Myriad,
its officers,
directors, employees or agents be liable for any special, incidental,
or
consequential damages resulting from possession, use, or malfunction of
one of their products.
Neither exchange, nor
partial or total refund
can be claimed for these products after the user
has received and read his personal registration code.
Myriad reserves the right to invalidate and to disable at any time the
personal registration code of a user following the
illegal distribution of his code or a default in the complete payment
of
his software license fee.
In no event will Myriad be liable for any
direct or indirect consequence of the invalidation and disabling of a
personal
registration code following a default in payment or an illegal
distribution
of the personal code.
Myriad Software, the Myriad Software logo, MyrScript, Harmony Assistant, Virtual Singer are trademarks of Myriad Software.
Apple and Macintosh are trademarks of Apple, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
Windows is a trademark of Microsoft, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
Adobe, Adobe Illustator and Adobe Photoshop are trademarks of Adobe, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
The application general menu*, "order" sub-menu, will connect you to our store, from where you can order a PDFtoMusic licence.
Please consider that the playback quality of PDFtoMusic, as well as the
audio file export (WAV, AIFF, MP3) can be drastically improved by using GOLD 2 sound base.
* Called "?" on Windows, "PDFtoMusic" on Macintosh
We wish to thank all people who helped us, since May
2006, by their advices and extensive tests.
MM Aarden, Aguila, Bautista, Belkin, Butin,
Faivre, Gershwinou, Good, Groromrom, Herman,
Hinchey, Houllemare, De Kloe, Lagarde, LeBow, Le
Calonnec, Legall, Lemaire, Machefert, Nappert,
Nicou, Oliveira, Puff, Rouquie.
A special thank to Franck Aguila for having
designed and drawn the application graphics.
Virtual Singer
New languages sung by Virtual Singer are the result
of the collaboration with several voluntary users.
Most of these languages are based on the work of Sylvain
Machefert for the Harmony Assistant's
"Other languages" script.
Basque : We are looking for people who could help us
Bulgarian : Alexander Sadovski
Catalan : Gil Rossell Duchamps
Slavonic : Sylvain Machefert (We are looking for
people who could help us)
Czech : Václav Müller
Dutch : Roeland Bekker
Esperanto : Sylvain Machefert
Greek : Vassili Louziotis , Sylvain Machefert
Hebrew : Michel Levy, Mitchell Martin, Sylvain
Machefert
Hungarian : Sylvain Machefert, Macher Tivadar, Mikó
Zoltán, Paál Balázs, Peter Velosy, Szabó Norbert
Macedonian : Sylvain Machefert (We are looking for
people who could help us)
Portuguese : J F Duran, Antonio Ferreira, Francisco
Guerra, Sylvain Machefert, Carlos Pires, A Paulo O
Soares, Hallstein Sřrĺs
Romani : Sylvain Machefert (We are looking for
people who could help us)
Romanian : Sylvain Machefert, Terolaviu
Popescu
Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian: Sylvain Machefert (We are
looking for people who could help us)
Turkish : Omer Aslan, Éngin, Aykut Kılıç, Sylvain
Machefert, Aydin Yulug,
Vietnamese : Van Binh Luong